


Gods of New York

by justanothersong



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Art, Crack, Ex-Boyfriends, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Making it up As I Go Along, Pagan Gods, Polytheism, eventual light smut, past emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 23,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8383210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: You shook your head. “I’m losing my mind,” you said, turning back to stare at the unmoving statue for a long moment. When you turned again, you had expected him to be gone, a figment of your imagination drifted back off into the cold winter night. But he was still there. Watching you. Smiling.





	1. Chapter 1

The university campus had a temple complex, and it seemed as though it should be deserted this time of night. You never prayed to the gods of New York, not once since you had arrived there to begin your college career; you were from California and had been raised in the worship of the gods of sun, of sand, and of fame. Even then, you hadn’t been terribly devout, offering up hopeful teenage novenas to Marilyn, the Goddess of Beauty, begging for flawless skin and sex appeal only in your worst moments.

But tonight? Tonight, you were desperate.

The temple was as deserted as you expected, even as the ceremonial fires glowed before the statues of those who comprised the pantheon of New York. You had been in the city long enough to know them all by name: the Black Widow, patron goddess of indomitable women; Iron Man, god of wealth, power, and ingenuity; Hulk, the god of anger, and many, many more. They each had attributes beyond their initial claim to fame and were worshipped with great gusto in the city and beyond. The Black Widow had a particularly strong cult among the young women of the university, but you weren’t here tonight to plead for her intercession. No, you were here to beseech another for help.

At the far end of the temple stood a marble statue of a handsome, strong young man in the full bloom of youthful power. The story went that the Captain had been a young soldier of greatly brave and honest heart, and when he fell on the battlefield, the universe saw to it that he was raised to the heavens and given power to watch over all of mankind for eternity. He was a living god, like the others, said to walk the very streets of the city and reside in the mysterious skyscraper called the Tower, which loomed and lorded over the rest of the city as its very own Mount Olympus.

You were here to beg for the help of the Captain, Steve Rogers, and ask him to hear your prayers.

 

You dropped a few coins in an offering box mounted before his small altar and lit a blue votive candle with a waiting book of matches. It was cool in the temple in the dead of winter and you had rushed out of your small campus apartment with little thought towards dressing for the weather, only hoping beyond words that this last ditch effort might save you. You had wracked your brain, calling every friend you could think of, but it was late and there wasn’t any time left. In a few short hours, your college career will have all been for naught.

It was your own stupid fault. You had known that Brandon was volatile but you chose to stay with him, even when you had seen the warning signs. When it got to be too much, when you felt claustrophobic, you finally handed him his walking papers -- only for him to start taking out his anger on everything you owned. First your bike, then your car, then a window in your apartment that you had to pay to replace. You thought he had finally gotten over it when you came home that night to find your portfolio, your entire year-long figure drawing portfolio, trashed on your living room floor. He had torn them to pieces and thrown every drop of paint he could find all over them, just to make sure they were destroyed -- on the night before you were due to hand it in as your senior project.

By the time the police came and went and you knew you were safe -- they had found him mere blocks away in bar, still covered in the acrylics he had strewn on your floor -- it had only just fully settled that a year’s worth of work to finish your fine arts degree was beyond saving.

You didn’t know who else to ask for help.

 

The Captain was one of the kinder gods, you had been told. Several of your fellow art students had claimed his blessings throughout your years at the university, but you had thought it all daydreams and wishful thinking. And yet here you were, knelt before a statue in the flickering glow, tears streaming down your face, begging for the intercession of the god of kindness, honesty, fair-play, and the arts.

“I didn’t know who else to ask,” you said into the stillness of the temple, scrubbing at your tears before you rolled your eyes and laughed at your own foolishness. Talking to statues now, in a cold and empty temple. That’s how far you had fallen.

You sighed. “I’m pathetic,” you mumbled, and moved to stand.

“I wouldn’t say that,” a new voice interrupted. You turned quickly, ready to tell off whoever had snuck up on you in what was meant to be a holy place, and your breath caught in your throat when you saw him.

You would have known even if he hadn’t resembled the statues and icons you had seen over the years. He was beautiful in a way no mortal man should be, from the slope of his shoulders to the trimness of his waist, the perfectly muscled arms showing beneath a t-shirt of all things. And his face, oh, his face…

It was the eyes that got you first, brilliant and blue and so very, very kind, and his dark blonde hair crowning his head like a halo. His plush mouth was pulled into a gentle smile, and he sat in one of the many scattered pews, appeared out of nothing and just watching you. 

“You’re… you…” you stammered, eyes wide. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

His smile grew. “Last I checked, yes,” he agreed, his tone quiet and congenial.

“But you can’t be!” you replied.

He arched a slender blonde eyebrow. “And why’s that?” he asked.

“Because you’re not real!” you sputtered, and he threw back his head and laughed, resting a hand over his chest as his deep chuckles echoed throughout the temple.

You shook your head. “I’m losing my mind,” you said, turning back to stare at the unmoving statue for a long moment. When you turned again, you had expected him to be gone, a figment of your imagination drifted back off into the cold winter night.

But he was still there. Watching you. Smiling.

“But… I don’t..” you said, stumbling over your words. “Why…?”

“Why?” he echoed as he stood, walking towards you. You trembled a little, realizing that the statues had done little justice by his size; he towered over you. He smiled and said your name, softly as though to calm you, and reached one hand to touch your face.

“Because you asked for my help,” he said quietly. He took a step back and did nothing you ever would have expected: he offered you his hand to shake. “Steve Rogers, ma’am,” he went on when you took it, even as you felt the thrum of power in his fingertips. “What can I do for you?”


	2. Chapter 2

You didn’t have to tell him what you needed; he seemed to already know. You suddenly found yourself standing in the corridor outside your apartment door, the quiet chill of the temple gone in the blink of an eye, and the living god standing beside you, waiting patiently with a polite smile. You shook your head as though to clear away the cobwebs from the sudden change in scenery and dug in your pocket for your keys, opening the door and gesturing for him to follow you inside. 

It was cold inside, though not as frigid as the temple had been. You hadn’t thought to turn the thermostat back up after you had aired out the room, trying to get the heady scent of so many mixed paints to clear. You’d even left a window cracked, you realized, and moved to close it, rubbing your hands together for warmth as you turned to try and explain.

Steve was knelt on the floor, where much of your destroyed work still remained. The police had taken photographs but left most of it behind for you to try and salvage, though it was clear from even a cursory glance that nothing could be saved. What wasn’t crumpled and torn was too laden down with splatters of paint to be of any use. Months of work, hundreds of dollars of supplies, and it was all gone in one fit of frat boy rage.

Steve picked up the fragment of one of your figure studies, a back view of a university swimmer you had spied at a practice one afternoon. The god ran his fingers over the charcoal, between the lines of dripped yellow paint, and shook his head.

“It should be a crime to destroy something so beautiful,” he commented mildly.

You gave a rueful laugh. “Thankfully, she’s fine,” you joked, gesturing towards the figure of the swimmer on the page. “It’s just my work that got ruined.”

Steve shook his head. “You have a gift for this. You can practically see the muscles moving beneath the skin, in a still image,” he said, and looked up to meet your gaze. “You’re very talented. This is a great loss. I’m so sorry.”

The pity in his voice and the genuine sorrow in his eyes as he spoke brought up a wealth of emotion you had been trying to suppress all evening. The police hadn’t understood, not really; they just looked at as a little destruction of personal property, mostly harmless and not terribly important, especially when Brandon had a key to get in to do it. 

You wiped away a stray tear and put on a smile. “Hey, it was my own fault anyway,” you said, shaking your head and feeling suddenly very stupid for asking for a god’s intercession to fix your own dumb mistake. “I should have just…”

Steve’s expression hardened as he stood. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It is not your fault. Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.”

“I knew what he was like,” you said, echoing the words of a friend you had called right after you had discovered the mess and casting your eyes to the ground. “I knew what he was like and I should have known…”

“No,” Steve said again, strong hands gently squeezing your shoulders before his arms wrapped around you, pulling you close against him. 

 

You began crying in earnest then, weeping softly into his strong chest while the god made soft soothing noises and rubbed your back, telling you that it would be alright, that he was here now to help, and that it was not your fault.

It had been hard to find a shoulder to cry on after you had left Brandon. Your friends had been warning you off from the beginning but you just couldn’t see what they did, not at first; it seemed any pit they might have had for you had drifted away each time you showed up on their doorstep or called at odd hours with another emergency caused by his temper. He’d never raised a hand to you, but he’d flown off the handle at the drop of a hat and took out his anger on your belongings. 

They’d tell you time and again to put him out, but they didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand the way he made you feel, the things he said, low and dangerous and so seductively true to your ears, when no one else was around: that you were nothing, that you were worthless, that you were wasting your life drawing silly pictures and needed someone like him to take care of you, to prop you up and keep you from making an even bigger mess out of your life. 

He made you certain that no one else could ever want someone so useless and damaged as you. And you believed it, all of it, until the day your faculty advisor had told you that you had a large spot reserved for you in the spring art showing, and that the university was considering purchasing a graphite piece you had done of the arts building for permanent display on campus.

Something had switched that day, something clicked in your head that you could do this, that you were worth something. You had been so excited, and when you tried to tell Brandon, it was as though he couldn’t care less. That planted the little seed in your mind that grew into more, the strength to tell him that you didn’t need him and, more than that, you didn’t want him.

Of course he had been furious. Of course. And of course your friends had reminded you that they had warned you all along, hadn’t they? At this point, you had really brought it all on yourself.

But here was someone now holding you, telling you that it wasn’t your fault at all. Steve spoke without real words, the warmth of his embrace enough to dispel the chill in your air and the strength of his arms enough to keep you standing when the relief made your knees buckle. 

 

The slamming open of the door should have made you startle, but you felt so safe and warm that you barely blinked your eyes open to peer over the god’s shoulder. You should have expected Brandon to show up; the campus police were good for giving Brandon a little time to ‘cool off’ and then turning him loose again, thanks to his status as a legacy at the school and his friendship with people in high places.

You sighed, suddenly exhausted at the thought of dealing with him again.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” you told him, glaring. 

“Should have known you’d have somebody in here,” Brandon spat back. “Not even a couple hours since you try and get me in trouble and you already got some other guy…”

Steve turned suddenly, sliding you easily out of his embrace to stand behind him, one hand holding your arm in a gentle, comforting touch while the other clenched into a fist at his side. You felt the air in the room change, an increase of pressure as something popped and crackled, the god’s anger becoming palpable around you.

“Leave,” he said, voice cold and powerful in a way you hadn’t heard since his appearance in the temple. “You’re not welcome here.”

Brandon gaped. It was clear that he sensed something beyond what it appeared, though you didn’t know if he realized what he had walked into; Brandon came from the south and worshipped gods of spring growth and strict family values. You didn’t think he’d ever stepped foot in the campus temple, or any other in the city for that matter.

“I don’t…” Brandon stammered, shaking his head as his face turned red. Whether he was embarrassed or frightened, you couldn’t be sure; you were only glad it wasn’t aimed at you for a change. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry…”

“You’re going to leave,” Steve told him evenly. “You’re never going to come back here. You’ll never speak to her again. Do you understand?”

Brandon nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, voice low.

“This woman is under my protection and if you so much as look at her again, I will know, and I will come for you,” Steve told him, and you felt yourself shiver at his words.

Brandon nodded, stumbling backwards until he nearly fell out the door. He slammed it shut behind him, and you could hear his running footfalls down the corridor as he left.

When Steve turned back to you, he gave a sheepish grin that you couldn’t help but return. Just like that, the sense of power in the air had drawn back in, leaving you standing together in relative quiet. If you hadn’t already known it, you would never have thought that you were standing inches away from a god that walked among men.

“Sorry about that,” he told you, a faint pink blush risen in his cheeks. “I try not to do that, but… I could feel it, the way he’d manipulated you. I didn’t want to see you hurt that way again.”


	3. Chapter 3

You couldn’t believe it, all that had happened in only a few short hours. Your work had been destroyed and now a god stood in your living room, offering you kindness and compassion when you hadn’t even said a prayer in his name until that very night, when the desperation set in. He hadn’t been able to fix everything wrong in your life -- really, who could? -- but he had sent Brandon away, and you knew it was for good.

You were free now. You could start over. It might take another year at school to replace what you had lost, but you were free. On instinct, you threw your arms around him again, squeezing him tight in an embrace full of the gratitude you couldn’t otherwise express.

He seemed to expect it, chuckling softly into your hair even as he wrapped his arms around you. Your shoulders were shuddering, the tears coming back again, tears of relief and joy and gratefulness bubbling up inside of you. 

“Shh, now, don’t cry,” Steve said soothingly, strong hand rubbing a circle on your back. “No tears for him. No tears for me, okay doll?”

You smiled, pulling away; you felt a little silly, but too happy to care. Whatever else happened now, you knew that you would be okay.

Steve shook his head and frowned, peering down at the tattered remnants of your artwork on the floor again with his hands at his hips. He heaved a sigh and you watched the way it moved through him, shoulders arching and chest puffing out on the soft exhale. He was a work of art in himself; you had the wild thought that you would love to put him to paper, grab your pencils and a sketchbook and save the moment for an eternity.

“We have rules,” Steve said quietly. “We agreed to them. We don’t change the past. I can’t… I can’t change what he did here.”

You shook your head. “It’s okay,” you told him. “I’ll manage.”

He was still frowning when he looked back up at you. “Not in time,” he replied. “You had to turn this in tomorrow, didn’t you? There’s no time to make it all up.”

You nodded in agreement. “It’s okay,” you repeated. “Another year, right? That’s all. I mean, it’s not like there’s much I can do with my degree anyway,” you added with a self-deprecating laugh. “Another year on ramen and student loans, I can swing it.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Steve said firmly. “I can’t change what’s past but… but I can bring you someplace where the present is… well it can be on hold, for a little while?”

You arched an eyebrow. “I don’t understand,” you said slowly.

Steve offered you a small smile. “I can give you the time you need to repair this mess he made. To complete your portfolio. There’s a place, time moves differently there… and I can take you, if you want. Give you all the time you need and bring you back before sunrise.”

“You would… do that for me?” you asked slowly. The idea was certainly appealing, being able to finish what you’d started without taking another year off. But it didn’t make sense -- you were no penitent, no devotee of the Captain or any of the other gods of New York. Why on earth would he want to help you?

His smile grew. “Of course I would,” Steve agreed amiably. “You asked for my help, didn’t you?”

“But I’m not…” you started, gesturing towards the altar nook in your apartment wall. Every home was built with one, the traveling gods of each homeowner or tenant placed there for home worship. But yours was barren, no candle, no effigy, not even a scrap of incense or offering.

The god laughed, and said your name, shaking his head. “I give my assistance freely to whoever I choose,” he told you, and reached to touch your face, pushing a stray lock of hair out of your eyes, tucking it behind your ear. “You are worthy of more than even I could give you. I am at your service, whatever you need.”

“This is unbelievable,” you muttered, shaking your head. You glanced around at the mess, certain now you were either hallucinating or half-insane. Either way, you surmised, it couldn’t hurt to play along with the madness. “What do I have to do?”

Steve grinned. “Just take my hand,” he said, one out to you and wiggling his fingers in invitation. “And know that you will be safe with me, and you can stay for as long as you like. Whenever you want to come back, just say the word, and we’ll come back. And no matter what happens, your will is completely your own. You don’t have to say or do anything that you don’t want to do. Do you understand?”

You nodded slowly. “I think so,” you agreed, and reached out for his hand. You paused just a moment before taking it, feeling that same crackle in the air again, as though a spark of electricity was just waiting to arch from his fingertips to yours. It was daunting but you were determined now, and firmly took his hand in your own. 

Steve pulled you closer, wrapping his free arm around your waist. There was a sudden rush of cool air and then you weren’t in your apartment anymore. You gasped and stumbled a little, and the god just held you tighter.

 

“Give it a minute, doll,” he told you quietly. “The trip can be a little much for you, the first time around.”

You clung to him perhaps a little tighter than necessary; the solid, warm feel of him in your arms was a little more alluring than perhaps you care to admit, though you passed it off as a need to stay steady on your feet.

“Where are we?” you asked, glancing around the room. 

One wall was lined with windows, looking out over the twinkling lights of the city. It was still late in the night, wherever you had landed, and the sky was clear and dark. You were in a loft of sorts, an open floor plan with beautifully polished hardwood floors. The walls were exposed brick and the kitchen area burnished steel; the sleeping area had the largest bed you’d ever seen, dressed in linens of shades of green, and the living area had seemingly been spread out, the seats and tables pushed away to leave a wide, open setting with an easel.

Steve smiled, arm still around your waist. “This is my home,” he told you softly. “I can get you anything and everything you’ll need to finish your work.”

You let out a long, shaky exhale, glancing up at him and finding yourself lost a long moment in the deep blue oceans of his eyes.

“The Tower,” you finally managed, voice soft and awed. “We’re in the Tower.”

Steve nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “Is that okay?”

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you. “Okay?” you echoed. “My gods, Steve, I… I can’t even think straight, this is so… it’s…”

Steve gave you a sheepish smile, and you were glad that he still had a strong arm at your waist; you never considered yourself terribly impressionable, but you could swear that you might have swooned if he hadn’t held you upright. The way his eyes brightened, the way his nose crinkled and his brow crooked, it was so much to take.

“Overwhelming?” he offered. “Believe me, I get it. When I first got here I couldn’t… well, that’s a story for another day. You must be exhausted.”

You felt it then, immediately; if you hadn’t known better, you thought he had simply willed it so. But the night had been so much -- so overwhelming, as he’d said -- and you hadn’t been sleeping well as it was. You were dead on your feet, eyes getting heavy at the very thought.

You yawned. “M’sorry,” you said quietly. “I’m not being a very good guest.”

Steve chuckled. “That’s quite alright,” he replied, and you couldn’t even bring yourself to be embarrassed when he scooped you up into his arms. “You need your rest. Sleep now, and when you wake up, we can get started.”

You yawned again, absently snuggling against him even as he laid you across the bed. You barely registered as he untied your boots and slipped them from your feet, then pulled the soft, warm blankets up to cover you.

“Sleep,” he said again, and the last thing you could recall was the soft brush of his lips across your temple before you drifted off into your dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

You slept deeply, fatigue having set in bone-deep after the entire ordeal with Brandon. You couldn’t remember your dreams as you began to surface into consciousness, only that they had been pleasant. You were warm and cozy in a way that you hadn’t felt for some time, and were loathe to move from your comfortable position, but there were voices nearby drawing you back to wakefulness.

“I told you,” the first said, low but feminine.

“I can’t believe it,” another responded, another female voice but lilting with an accent you couldn’t place. “He’s never done this before, has he? Brought someone.”

The first voice hummed. “No,” she agreed. “He’s never even taken a favorite, so far as I know.”

“Nat? Wanda?” a familiar male voice interrupted. “Uh… not that I don’t appreciate the visit, ladies, but… what’s going on?”

You opened your eyes as the two women who had been hovering near the bed turned away; the redhead, seated on the edge of the bed, had her back to you, while the willowy, wide-eyed blonde stood next to her and cast a small, friendly smile your way when she saw your eyes open.

“I thought Natasha was fooling me,” the blonde, presumably Wanda spoke, turning her attention towards Steve. It looked as though he had just returned from some errand, dropping paper shopping bags on the kitchen countertop. “She said you’d brought a visitor to the Tower, and I did not believe her.”

Steve sighed. “You didn’t wake her, did you?” he asked. “She’s had a rough night.”

“I’m afraid we have,” Wanda said, and gave you another small smile.

Natasha swiveled and looked at you curiously. “Doesn’t look terribly worse for wear, either,” she added, spiking a crimson eyebrow as she spoke. Your eyes widened and you drew in a breath, realizing who she was: the Black Widow. She seemed to note the recognition in your eyes and gave a fierce, amused smile. 

You suddenly felt horribly embarrassed. There was a kindness to the Captain, a sense of soothing to the way he had spoken to you the night before that had chased away any lingering bad feeling you harbored over the entire affair with Brandon, but being greeted with the sight of the Black Widow had brought it all rushing back, and all the worse. How horrifying it was for her to see you, to know… for the goddess of strong women, proud women, women who bowed to no man, to see the aftermath of the mess you had made. You were certain that death by sheer shame was a very real possibility.

Natasha’s brow furrowed as she watched you, her head cocking to the side as her green eyes searched your face.

 _Never be ashamed_ , you heard her voice echo in your mind. _Strength is made by tempering in fire. You’re a survivor_.

“We didn’t mean any harm,” Wanda spoke up, her voice enough to break the stare you’d held with Natasha. “Curiosity, that’s all.”

“Did you sleep well?” Steve asked, venturing over. It was more than a little surreal of a scene for you to survey: you laid out in the bed of a god, while he and some of his divine pals stood by and chatted. You weren’t familiar with Wanda, but knew she must be a part of the pantheon to have such familiarity with the others.

“Um… yes, very well, thanks,” you mumbled, pulling the blanket a little tighter around you as though to cover yourself from their prying gazes, even as you sat there still fully clothed from the night before.

“I’m sure you know of Natasha,” Steve went on, gesturing to the redhead, who gave a friendly nod at mention of her name. “And this is Wanda. She visits us here in New York from time to time.”

“It’s… nice to meet you?” you offered, tone tipping up into a question without your permission.

Wanda gave you another smile. “And you as well,” she agreed. “Any friend of the Captain is a friend of ours. Is that not so, Natasha?”

“Of course,” Natasha agreed, and stood. “Though I get the impression that they would like some privacy. I’m sure we’ll see you again soon enough,” she told you, and gestured towards the door.

Wanda was right on her heels. “She is quite lovely, no?” she said in an all too loud whisper. “The Captain seems to pleased to have her here…”

 

Color rode high in the Captain’s cheeks as the door closed behind the two goddesses. He gave an embarrassed chuckle, one large hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry about that,” he told you. “They mean well, they can just be a little… nosy.”

“I’m certainly in no position to judge,” you told him with a weak smile.

Steve reached out and touched your face, running his long fingers along your jaw. “They’re not wrong, though,” he muttered, perhaps more to himself than to you. His eyes met yours and he gave a small smile. “You must know how beautiful you are… even if no one’s told you in a while.”

You blushed like a schoolgirl, feeling hot all over, and cast your eyes down, unable to reply. The god was still touching you, strong hand so unnervingly gentle as he let his fingers drift to your chin. There was barely any pressure but you couldn’t help but comply as he tipped your face up, seeking out your eyes with his own once again. You felt a wave of calm coming from him, soothing your frazzled nerves.

And then the spell seemed to break, the Steve grinned. “C’mon gorgeous,” he said, nodding his head towards the kitchen. “Let me make you breakfast.”


	5. Chapter 5

Steve liked to talk as he cooked. He refused any help, insisting that you were a guest in his home and would be treated as such, and instead chatted amiably while you sat on a stool along the countertop and he puttered around in the kitchen. 

“You like eggs, right?” Steve asked, gesturing to the sizzling frying pan on the stove with his spatula. “If not, I can make something else.”

You nodded. “Eggs’ll be great, thanks,” you said mildly, sipping from the cup of coffee he had presented you with moments before. It was rich and dark and perfect, just how you liked it; you had to suppress a moan at the taste.

“I don’t get to cook often,” Steve explained with a smile. “Don’t really need to eat, honestly. Forget about it sometimes. S’nice to really get into it, the familiarity. Hell, just smelling it cooking is makin’ me feel hungry.”

“You don’t need to eat?” you asked curiously. You’d never really thought about it before; all of the gods you knew of had been human once. What remained of that humanity?

Steve shook his head, fiddling with the frying pan. “Nah,” he agreed with a shrug. “It’s weird, I know. Took a while for me to get used to it but after a while… well, a lot of stuff falls by the wayside after a while.” He turned towards you again and smiled, bracing two hands on the countertop. “Like entertaining a guest, you know? S’pose I haven’t been the best host, have I?”

“I’ve stayed with family who were less kind, Captain,” you replied dryly, remembering the last time you bunked with your sister.

“Please, call me Steve. I insist,” the god responded. “There’s no formalities here.”

You bit your lip. “It’s a little… I mean, you’re… you… and I’m just…”

“Hey, no, none of that,” Steve told you, and clasped your hands in his on the granite countertop. “We’re friends, doll. So I asked my new friend to come on over, spend some time with me, work on her art… maybe let me watch her work. That’s all.”

His hands were warm and slightly calloused, strong and altogether ordinary feeling. There was no crackle of electricity in the air, just the soft sounds of your breathing mingled with his own and the gentle smile on his face. You could have been with a friend, any friend at all. Not a god who had whisked you away to a Tower, performing some small miracle to save your college career.

It was so damned odd.

“Okay,” you said slowly, nodding your head. “Steve.”

He grinned, and turned back to his stove. “So you want bacon or sausage?”

 

God or not, it seemed that Steve had no idea how to cook for two people. There was enough food for at least six piled on the counter between you: eggs, toast, fried potatoes, bacon and sausage (as Steve couldn’t decide which he wanted and you told him you were fine either way). 

Though it looked like he might make a major dent in the spread on his own, with the way he was piling it up on his plate.

“You need anything else?” he asked, gesturing towards the food laid out before you both. He had taken a seat on the stool beside yours, his denim-clad knee just barely brushing against your own.

You had to laugh. “No, I’m good,” you told him. You felt light in a way that you hadn’t for some time, the weight of the world off your shoulders for a time. You realized that you were enjoying yourself, your time with Steve and the conversation.

He was a talker, it seemed. While he cooked, he talked about his mother -- ‘Ma’, as he had affectionately referred to her -- teaching him how to cook as a child, so he could prepare himself dinner when she was working late as a nurse. He confessed that he used those skills more to make sure there was something hot and waiting for her when she came home.

He talked about his friend, a man he referred to as Bucky but you knew to be the Soldier, god of both war and peace, of prisoners of war and the missing in action. You had always feared the statues of the Soldier, often carved with a face half-hidden in a mask and eyes full of anger; to hear Steve speak of him, though, he sounded like any one of the boys you had grown up with.

You arched an eyebrow when you saw him open a jar of grape jelly and spoon out a measure of it onto his scrambled eggs, stirring them into a mushy pile with his fork. He laughed when he saw your expression.

“The eggs in the service were awful,” he explained, shaking his head. “Like wet sawdust. Nothin’ could make’em taste good so we’d mix in some jelly, just to get’em down. Can’t eat’em any other way now.”

“So you really were a soldier?” you asked, suddenly curious. “I wasn’t… I mean, we all know the stories about the gods but I never knew how many of them were true.”

“Yes ma’am,” Steve agreed with a short nodded. “Enlisted soon as I could. Took awhile, I wasn’t so much fit for service at first but there were doctors and well… I really wanted to do my part.”

“And you… died?” you pressed, curiosity getting the better of your manners.

Steve nodded again. “I was on a plane,” he explained. “Just me, and I didn’t really have flight training, but there was a heavy payload and they’d been aiming to take it right up to our boys on the front, and I couldn’t let that happen. Put’er down in the water, far away as I could get it. Then it was lights out for me.”

You couldn’t help the way you stared at him, almost in awe. “That was very brave,” you said quietly.

Steve shook his head. “It was the right thing to do,” he replied, as though it were nothing greater than returning a lost wallet or putting a fallen baby bird back into its nest. “Next thing I knew, I was waking up again and things were all… different. I could hear people, talking to me, asking for my help. Met some of the others, wound up here.”

“You talk about it like it was nothing,” you told him. “You gave your life to save, what, hundreds? Thousands? And you were… were…”

“The terminology is ‘ascension’, I believe,” Steve said with a small snort. “I don’t know how it all works to be honest. I just sort of… wasn’t, for a while? And then I was again, but different? I get to help people, and I like that, so that’s all that matters to me.”


	6. Chapter 6

After breakfast, Steve directed you towards the bathroom, should you want to get cleaned up or anything. You were glad for it -- a few cups of the best coffee you’d ever tasted and you were beginning to wonder if gods had need for a bathroom at all and, if not, you’d be in serious trouble. You’d offered to help him clean up but he refused.

“Guests don’t do dishes,” he admonished, and when you moved to protest, he slapped the flat end of the spatula he’d just scrubbed against your bottom, drawing out a laughing yelp from you that made him grin.

“Go on,” he reiterated, gesturing towards the door off of the bedroom area, that you hadn’t even noticed until he pointed it out. “I’ll have Natasha or somebody get you some clean clothes. Should be enough towels and a bathrobe in there for you, for now.”

You studied him a long moment before nodding and heading in that direction. If all gods were like this, you reasoned, you really should have been spending more time in the temple.

 

After living in a very small campus apartment that had only a walk-in shower and sporadic bouts of hot water, you could have wept when your eyes lit upon the spacious bathroom and its huge sunken tub. It would be deep enough to sink to your chin and seemed large enough to swim laps. You forgot where you were for a time, pulling off your clothes with hastened movements just at the thought of relaxing in the water, and set the tap to fill at just the right temperature. A slate colored cabinet near the door held fluffy white towels and washcloths, and the most comfortable looking navy blue bathrobe you’d ever seen hung on a hook at its side. The tub filled rapidly, near to the top when you turned back to it, so you turned off the tap and gently eased yourself into the wonderfully hot water. It was only then you noticed a small silver tray laden with bottles of jars, soaps and salts and scrubs all scented with almond and vanilla, like the high end products you adored but could never afford to buy.

The startling realization hit you that this was all for you. You couldn’t imagine the Captain doing this, relaxing into a tub and luxuriating with overpriced soaps; the shower stall you spotted in the corner seemed far more likely to be his quarry. But this? The tub, the soaps, all of it -- _he had done this for you_.

It was a little overwhelming, but the water was so warm, the perfect temperature, and the scent filling the room so lovely that you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You spent longer than you should have in the water, your fingers going wrinkled and pruney before you even had a chance to wash your hair. When you did emerge and dry yourself, you slipped into the bathrobe and felt your heart start pounding a little in your chest. It was huge and you swam in the soft terrycloth, the tie at the waist wrapped tight to keep it in place. You knew immediately that it wasn’t placed there solely for your benefit -- it was his. It was large enough to fit his muscular frame and it even smelled like him, a little spicy and a little citrusy, a scent you hadn’t even realized you’d been enjoying for some time.

It had been all over the bedsheets, now that you thought about it, driving home the fact that you’d passed the night in a god’s own bed.

You had to take a few deep breaths to keep yourself grounded when that occurred to you.

 

You crept out of the bathroom in bare feet, snuggled into the warm and comfortable robe, hair falling in damp tendrils around your shoulders. Steve looked up with a smile at the sound of the door but his eyes widened when he drank you in, a rosy flush rising high in his cheeks. He had been sitting on one of the breakfast bar stools but quickly stood, slipping behind the counter.

“You… uh… yeah, I… I’m glad you found everything,” he stammered.

“Thanks,” you replied demurely. “Couldn’t tell you the last time I had a real bath. Think I stayed in a little longer than necessary.”

Steve chuckled softly. “No harm there,” he told you. “I want you to be comfortable here. I’m sorry I didn’t think of clothes from the outset… I haven’t really had a houseguest before, so…”

You sidled up to the counter, taking a seat on a stool, careful to arrange the folds of the robe to keep yourself as covered as possible. You didn’t miss the way the god’s gaze dipped down the collar to where it fell open just a bit at your chest, and you blushed.

“You’ve been… amazing,” you told him, shaking your head. “I stayed with my sister for a weekend last year and had to sleep on the floor and use her neighbor’s shower, because hers was broken. This is like a five-star hotel in comparison.”

Steve smiled again, bright and a little bashful, casting his gaze down. “I’m glad you like it,” he said, and when he glanced up again to meet your eyes, you found yourself caught again in his wild blue gaze. “Nat said she’d bring some clothes by in a bit, and then you can get started on your work. Did you take a look at the supplies?” 

He gestured towards the easel you had noted when you first arrived. You hadn’t seen the small pile of art supplies sitting in an armchair beside or, or the portfolio case propped up beside it. Even from a distance you could see that they were high end products, better than what you typically could afford on your own, and most were in your preferred mediums..

“I know you do most of your figure work in graphite or charcoal,” Steve went on, “But I grabbed a few other things as well, in case you wanted to dabble. Pastels, watercolors, oils… whatever you could need. If there’s anything else you want, just say the word.”

You glanced back at him in surprise. There were tears in your eyes; you couldn’t help it. You were touched and more than a little overwhelmed.

“Why are you doing all of this for me?” you asked, not for the first time.

“Because you asked for my help,” he reminded, coming out from behind the counter. “And to be honest? I kinda like you. I’d like to see you work. See what you can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, guys. This has been a very rough week for me and I've had trouble pulling myself out of darker headspace to write, but I think I'm getting there again. Phew.


	7. Chapter 7

You started in charcoal. You always warmed up before starting any major projects, with quick sketches of your own hands; marking the muscle movement, the lines of your knuckles, flexing and clenching, to get yourself back into the appropriate headspace. 

Natasha hadn’t arrived with any clothing for you to wear, as Steve had promised, and it had been cumbersome trying to work in the robe. Comfortable as it was, it was far too large for your frame; the sleeves kept sliding down your arms each time you rolled them back, and keeping the belt tied tightly while you stood and moved around was nothing but precarious. More than once you had to catch the soft fabric as it was sliding off your shoulders or falling open.

“Let me find you something to wear,” Steve suggested with a frown, glancing at the door. “I can’t imagine what’s keeping Nat.”

You couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I’m sure a goddess has more important things to do than to shop around for someone’s houseguest.”

Steve shook his head. “She offered,” he pointed out. “I’m sure she just got hung up or something, we can manage til she gets here, right?” He smiled when he padded back to you, feet bare, dressed in a white t-shirt and pair off the softest looking flannel pajama pants. He held aloft another one of his t-shirts and what took you a moment to recognize as a pair of boxer briefs.

“Sorry,” Steve told you sheepishly. “I don’t anything else with a waistband that won’t slip right off of you. Everything’s fresh washed, promise,” he explained.

“This’ll be fine, really,” you told him, offering a smile. You world had already moved a little beyond surreal, after all; you were rescued by an actual god, you were staying in his home and had even slept in his bed the night before. So what if you wear a pair of his underwear? Par for the course at this point.

 

He sat on his couch while you worked, seemingly enraptured by the scratch of your charcoal across the textured paper, though you weren’t completely fooled: more than once you had glanced back to see the god’s gaze slipping down your backside and trailing down your bare legs.

You tried not to think on it. He had been human once, after all.

You did a full page study on your own hands, then another on the skyline that you could see outside of the floor to ceiling windows. It was the city, but somehow not; things were different, a little strange, buildings that should be long gone standing up alongside buildings that not yet were. You knew this place had something of a magic too it. Steve had promised to return you to the very night he had taken you away, the very minute, after all. Wherever the Tower really was, it seemed to exist outside of space and time as you knew it. The display it provided outside of the windows as magnificent.

“Do you often do landscapes?” Steve asked casually, the afternoon light beginning to fade from the sky.

You shook your head. “Not really,” you admitted. “My study was meant to be on figures -- people. I liked to track the movement of muscle, the stretch of it. But I can make do.”

Steve arched an eyebrow. “You can’t do figure drawings here?” he asked.

You turned to him with a shrug and a smile. “Tracking movement means I need a model,” you explained, pushing a strand of your hair out of your eyes and unknowingly drawing a streak of charcoal across your forehead.

Steve grinned and you, and you flashed him a puzzled look as he stood and made his way towards you. He stopped just in front of you, and you couldn’t help but tilt your head up to gaze at his eyes and wonder just what he was doing. 

“Are all real artists this messy?” he asked, and reached to wipe away the dusty streak you had painted across your forehead. Your eyes closed of their own volition when he touched you, even as you became acutely aware of just how close he was standing. He brushed away the mess and you sighed as his large hand made a slow descent, slipping down your jaw and along your throat to map the curve of your side and settle lightly at your hip.

“I don’t know,” you admitted, slowly opening your eyes again to find him still smiling at you. “I’ll tell you if I meet any real artists.”

Steve clucked his tongue and shook his head. “How can you say that?” he asked. “I’ve seen your work. You’re… it’s beautiful. You’re amazing.”

You blushed and his fingers lightly squeezed your hip, slipped up beneath the borrowed t-shirt to rest half on the elastic waistband of the boxer briefs and half against your skin, now soft and scented of vanilla and almonds from your luxurious bath.

“I could be, maybe, one day,” you said quietly. His eyes seemed to follow your lips as you spoke. “If I keep working at it, keep trying. And don’t lose another entire portfolio in a night.” Steve barked out a laugh and the spell was broken. He gave one final squeeze to your hip before stepping back and allowing you your space again.

“You’re amazing,” he repeated. “Now you have all the time in the world to get as much practice as you want. And if you need a model, I’m game.”

 

You spent the rest of the evening making various sketches of Steve. 

Steve sitting casually in an armchair.

Steve stretched out on his couch.

Steve standing, hands on his hips as he looked out over the skyline. You liked that one best, scribbling out the lines and arcs of his muscular back, hidden beneath the stretched cotton of his t-shirt.

Steve’s profile, the slope of his nose and the pout of his lips, his thick forest of eyelashes, the vague impressions of freckles that you knew must bloom dark in the sun. Anyone would recognize him from the myriad statues and icons on campus, sold in every store, perched in every altar nook you passed in New York. But they’d never seen him like this, relaxed and free in a way that made him all the more handsome.

You worked until the sun had set and your stomach started to growl. You tried to tamp it down, desperate to keep going, feel the same old thrill you used to get when you working, before Brandon and that whole mess. But when Steve heard it, the errant burbling of your disobedient gullet, he frowned.

“Hell, I’m sorry,” he muttered, standing up quickly. “You have to remind me, doll. I don’t need to eat, remember? I’ll forget entirely sometimes if you don’t remind me.”

He made you dinner, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, shrugging as he set it out on the countertop.

“Breakfast kinda exhausts my cooking expertise,” he told you with a wink. “But I’ll brush up for you.”


	8. Chapter 8

You went back to work after dinner. You felt energized, high on the very act of creation and spurred on by the quiet, constant praise and encouragement from the god who stood in as your model. 

He was beautiful, truly beautiful. You wondered if he had any idea. You knew that Steve didn’t play with his appearance, that he presented you with his true face; the statues you had seen since moving to New York were modeled on old photographs kept in reliquary at the city’s main temple. Whatever powers he had gained with his ascension, Steve still stayed the same man, in appearance at the least.

Something told you his personality hadn’t changed all that much either.

You were considering asking him to pull of his t-shirt and allow you a better view of his musculature when you were overcome by a sudden and rather loud yawn, haphazardly covering your mouth with the back of your hand to keep from dressing your face in charcoal dust again. 

“Don’t wear yourself out now, doll,” Steve warned in a teasing voice. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the couch, arms wrapped around his knees, holding the pose you had placed him in nearly an hour ago without error. All that had changed was his expression, eyes lighting up and sly and flirty smiles appearing as he talked to you.

You really couldn’t have asked for a better model.

“Oh, I’m not even tired,” you lied, and your words were punctuated by another deep yawn rising unbidden from your lips. So much for fibbing.

Steve chuckled. “Maybe we should break for the day,” he suggested. “There’s no need to rush. You can stay as long a you like, I’ve already told you that.”

You turned to glance at the easel, pouting at your half-finished sketch. You’d been doing preliminary work for most of the day, portfolio filler to showcase your process and your technique. You wouldn’t start on presentation pieces until the next day or so, but it would still grate on your nerves to leave something undone. You’d never get the light or the pose or even his smile just right again.

“After this one?” you offered as you turned back to face him, gesturing towards the half-done sketch with the rubbed-down piece of charcoal in your hand.

Steve gave you an indulgent smile. “Of course,” he agreed, arching his eyebrow. “So long as you can keep on your feet, doll. You look about ready to drop where you stand.”

You chuckled. “I think I’ll manage,” you told him dryly.

 

Half an hour or so later, your latest sketch was complete and your eyelids hung precariously at half-mast. You yawned and stretched, stumbling a little on your feet with fatigue. Before you could so much as move to try and catch your balance again, strong arms wrapped around your waist.

“Thought you’d be able to keep standing?” Steve teased, chuckling softly at the tired sigh you heaved, melting back against him.

You let him lead you through the room, walking behind you and supporting your weight, steering you towards the kitchen sink to wash the charcoal dust from your hands. The water was warm and the hand soap smelled of jasmine. Steve took your hands in his, gently pushing them beneath the warm water and soaping them up, threading his thick fingers through yours as he washed away the remnants of charcoal dust. 

With a contented sigh, you closed your eyes, reveling in the feel of his solid chest at you back and his strong warm hands lavishing attention on your own. Back beneath the faucet, he seemed to let himself linger a little longer than necessary, letting the warm water stream over both your hands long after the soap suds had been rinsed away.

Steve dried your hands on a kitchen towel and then steered you towards the bed.

“C’mon sweetheart,” he said, voice pitched low. “Time to get some shut-eye.” 

You let him lead you, one hand on your hip to direct your gait, following close behind your shuffling footsteps. A tired sigh escaped you as you reached the bed, and Steve reached past you to pull back the soft mossy green coverlet, leaving bare the sheets in a lighter shade of the same color. You didn’t need to be prodded to slide in between the sheets, cool and crisp against your skin, settling back against the pillows with a pleased hum.

“G’night doll,” Steve said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. You heard him step away and you were about to let the soft comfort of the bed lull you to sleep, when a thought struck you and you opened your eyes and sat up.

“Steve?” you asked quietly, watching as he pulled a flannel blanket from the back of the couch and spread it across the cushions. He glanced back at you, yawning widely and covering his gaping mouth with the back of his hand before responding.

“Everything okay?” he asked, and dropped his eyes to the blanket still in his hands. “Still cold? I can get it warmer in here, but in the meantime, you’re welcome to this extra blanket.”

Smiling, you shook your head. “Am I kicking you out of your own bed, Steve? I can’t do that to you, not when you’ve been so kind.”

He gave a slow roll of his shoulders, the elegant movement and play of muscle amounting more to the grace of a ballet than a simple gesture. You tracked the movement with your eyes, wondering, not for the first time, what it would be like to feel that same elegant dance beneath your fingertips. 

“I’m not put out,” Steve said simply. “Believe me, I’ve slept in worse places.” 

You sat up, draping your arms around your steepled knees, and shook your head.

“Nu-uh,” you told him, too tired to feel any apprehension in defying a god. “I’m not kicking you out of your own bed, Captain.”

He raised an eyebrow at your words, though you weren’t sure if it was your tone, what you were suggesting, or the fact that you had called him by his title rather than his given name, as he had been insisting since you arrived.

“That so?” Steve asked slowly, letting his blanket drop back against the couch.

“Yes sir,” you responded with a short nod. “This bed is enormous, Steve. I could roll around all night and not so much as bump into you. You’ve done so much for me, I’m not going to let you try and sleep on a couch. C’mon over.” You patted the empty expanse of the bed beside you and gave him the most pointed look you could muster in your exhaustion.

Steve chuckled softly. “Yes ma’am,” he said, smiling at you indulgently.

As he crossed the room, you had to wonder -- did gods even need to sleep? He had already told you that he didn’t really need to eat, just enjoyed the familiarity of it. It stood to reason that other basic needs, like sleep and air and comfort, were no longer necessities. But looking at him as he paused, hesitant, at the other side of the bed before pulling back the coverlet, you could see that he was fatigued. When he wasn’t schooling his expression, his face was drawn and tired, and there were dark circles forming beneath his eyes.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Steve said, attempting one last protest as he gestured towards the bed he now stood beside.

You yawned and settled back against your pillow. “Already been settled, Steve. Climb in and turn off the light, will you?”


	9. Chapter 9

Sharing a bed was not as simple as it had seemed, at least not from the outset. There were things you had forgotten -- and rightly so, considering you had been sleeping alone for some time. You’d put Brandon out of your bed long before you’d put him out of your home; he hadn’t seemed to mind one bit, spending nights away and claiming that he was crashing at a buddy’s place, though the floral perfumes clinging to his clothes told a far different story. 

You had forgotten what you were like with another warm body between the sheets. In your sleep, you became a heat-seeking missile, gravitating towards the nearest source of warmth. That led you to cuddle up against Steve while you slept, slotting yourself beside him and reveling in the heat that his body was putting off. When you woke, you were completely wrapped up in Steve: his arms around you, cradling you against his strong chest, your legs twined together beneath the sheets. 

You felt so relaxed and comfortable that for a brief moment, you thought you were still in the bath, having simply fallen asleep among the bubbles. But then you realized that you could hear the steady beat of his heart where your head lay against Steve’s chest and feel the gentle touch of his fingers, where his hand had slipped just beneath the hem of your t-shirt to rest against the bare skin at the small of your back. He sighed in his sleep, contented and completely at ease, and you let yourself relax again. Whatever may come when he woke, you could at least enjoy this moment.

You drifted, hovering at the edge of sleep, for an hour or two, too warm and content to dare move an inch. Steve seemed to be enjoying the closeness too, even as he slept; he would sigh occasionally in his sleep, and pull you a little tighter against him. You couldn’t help but wonder when the last time he’d shared a bed with anyone, even as you let your body curl against him, breathing in deep that intoxicating scent that had been all over his bathrobe and clung to the sheets.

When you woke again, more fully, it was to the sensation of Steve’s fingers running through your hair. You blinked sleepily up at him and he smiled, the hint of stubble on his face and his blue eyes seeming tired but happy.

“Morning,” he rumbled through a deep, contented sigh.

You ducked your head, a little embarassed. “M’sorry,” you mumbled, making to move away. “I forgot I sometimes creep up on people in close quarters like this…”

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” Steve told you, his embrace growing just a little tighter around you. “Can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling this good.” He sighed again and closed his eyes, a small smile on his face. “Why don’t we stay here just a little while longer?” he asked sleepily, and you couldn’t help but relent.

When you did finally manage to pull yourselves from the bed, you went straight to work while Steve pulled together something for lunch. Natasha dropped by in the evening, full of apologies and carrying a few shopping bags full of clothing.

“One of my devotresses needed me,” she said simply by way of explanation, and you gave a short nod; you had forgotten, for a time, that you were among gods. Being a simple mortal in such company was both humbling and confusing. Each time you felt you had really gotten a read on the situation, something -- like the way Steve pressed a kiss to your forehead upon waking for the second time that morning -- would happen that would confuse or startle you again.

“Why don’t you make it up to her?” Steve suggested from the kitchen, where he was carefully spreading peanut butter across a slice of white bread. He had volunteered to make you lunch and, lacking much anything else in the kitchen after cooking so much more than usual, he had settled on good old fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. “Why don’t you model for her, Natasha? While I make us all lunch.”

She paused and seemed to think about it, expression cool and unchanging even as she cocked her head to the side, red hair bouncing just below her ears as she did. The goddess still intimidated you, in spite of her kindness on the first occasion you’d met; she seemed so perfectly composed and deliberate in all of her actions, it made you feel like a hot mess in comparison. But there was no judgment there, no condescension in her gaze or manner.

“I could do that,” she relented with a nod, glancing around the living area before turning back to face you. “Where do you want me?”

 

You put her in the sun, the rays of sunlight streaming in the floor to ceiling windows making her skin seem brighter and her hair seem almost fiery. She closed her eyes in the glare and you asked her to keep them that way; something in her expression was softer, more approachable, when bathed in the warm glow. She stood there in the light, leaned against the windows with her face turned up as though greeting the sun, and her arms crossed over her chest, not defiantly but in a gesture somehow reminiscent of comfort and calm.

You sketched quickly, three or four quick warm-up pages down in charcoal before the thought struck you to move to graphite and colored pencil. You wanted to capture the moment, the color and the detail, so that you could work more in depth later. You didn’t often paint but you could see a portrait in Natasha’s pose, not the cold and commanding images they often hung in her temples, but this image of openness and welcoming that you wanted others to have the chance to see.

Perhaps, you thought, you might have gone to her for help, prayed to her, when the mess with Brandon had gotten out of control, if you had known at all that she was so kind. Perhaps there were others who would beg Natasha’s assistance if they knew she was not as cold and stern as some presented her.

“You do such beautiful work,” Steve murmured from just behind you, causing you to startle and jump. He offered you a sheepish smile.

“I don’t often have such beautiful models to work with,” you replied, adding another dusting of color to represent the shadowing on Natasha’s cheekbones, the softness of her lashes against her cheek. All this considered, the goddess truly was stunning; you’d have felt self-conscious if you were so much in your work zone.

“Stop, I’m blushing,” Natasha called dryly, causing both you and Steve to laugh.

“She’s not wrong,” Steve advised her. “I’m lucky that I’ll spend my afternoon with two ladies as lovely as you both.”

Now it was your turn to blush -- and you actually did.


	10. Chapter 10

The days seemed to drift seamlessly into one another; you’d wake, have breakfast with Steve, work all day only to crawl into bed with him at night. Often he’d have to stop you when you were too exhausted to continue but refusing to give up; sometimes he’d amble you to the sink to wash your hands before walking you to the bed, while other times he’d lift you into his arms and carry you off, tucking you in just to slide in beside you. 

That in particular had been fast to become your favorite part of the day. The warmth of Steve’s muscular form pressed against your body, the soft comforting sighs he often made in his sleep… it was all but intoxicating. It was difficult to not become accustomed to it; you were beginning to wonder if you could ever wake without it and not be disappointed.

Your portrait of Natasha had greatly impressed her, and it wasn’t long before the others who resided in the Tower were stopping by to see it. It was more than a little daunting, a parade of gods browsing your work, passing judgement. It was so different than the way you had met the Captain: something about him had just put you at ease. The others still made you nervous and left you wary.

Especially after they began offering to sit for portraits.

 

The Soldier was first, and you were terrified -- or, rather, you would have been had Steve not been there, all smiles and pleasantries, telling you tales of his youth with Bucky. That had thrown you more than just a little bit. Steve had referred to the Soldier by his youthful nickname once or twice during your stay at the Tower, but it never seemed to jibe with the images of the Soldier that you had seen since arriving in New York.

The Soldier, as you knew him, was frightening. Menacing. His eyes always staring out, cold and dark, the rest of his face covered by a dark cowl. You knew there was a duality to him, like with many of the gods; the Soldier was god of both war and peace, a dichotomy you never truly understood. To see him at ease, at home, was an even greater disunion.

He smiled. He practically grinned. Those eyes, always so frightening in the portraits and statues that populated temples and worship nooks across the city, were alight with laughter as he and Steve talked about their childhood.

“Should’ve seen this punk, a two-ton attitude in a ninety-pound bag of skin an’ bones,” Bucky said, smiling in his mirth even as he raised a bottle of beer to his lips.

Steve snorted and downed a mouthful of his own beer before replying. “You weren’t any better, divin’ into any scrape after me.”

You smiled and hummed, but kept working. You needed to capture Bucky like this, happy and so bright. You needed to help people to understand that he could be both -- war and peace, the dark heart of the fight and the joy of victory.

Bucky seemed to understand what you were doing, and as you sketched some preliminary poses for his portrait, you listened to the stories that he and Steve told and you could swear that you could see them. It occurred to you that he was using whatever powers he had gained as a god to let you in, to show you who he was before he was an exalted icon of the power of war.

You saw a Brooklyn kid and his best pal, getting into back alley fights on the side of what was right.

You saw a cocky young soldier in uniform, hat tipped just slightly on his head, a flirtatious glimmer in his eyes and a friendly smile curled on his lips.

You saw a freezing, starving, desperate officer, doing his best to see to his men in the battle even as disaster loomed before them.

You saw a man terrified and tortured, strapped down to a table as countless acts of violence were wrought against his mind and body.

You saw a cold, calculating, soulless assassin, kept on a tight mental leash and tortured back into submission if ever he began to stray, finally put down like a dog with a bullet to the back of his head when they deemed him too dangerous to continue.

Then you saw his new life, a god walking among men in the city of his birth, tending to the soldiers who returned from the war feeling broken inside, bearing scars no one else could see. You saw him taking the hands of those who never came home, leading their souls to a peace that he never found, in life or death.

You saw him finding his best friend again, another who was born a man to rise as a god, and finding some sense of home again.

You saw Bucky, and damned if he wasn’t beautiful.

The image that you painted ended up a picture of Bucky as a young soldier, that cocky grin, that light in his eyes that you just needed to capture. Steve loved it; Bucky seemed embarrassed, but ultimately pleased. After that, they all wanted to be captured on canvas.

 

Steve had to leave you on occasion, stepping outside of the Tower and the little cocoon of time and space he had created for you to attend to his many devotees. Oftentimes the others would stop by to entertain you in his absence, taking you around the Tower and even up to the rooftop gardens to pass the time. It seemed more or less like any other high rise, at least from the inside, with simple amenities like a gym and a pool, but also large communal spaces, making it clear that the gods who called it home spent their time together when they could.

Rather than swimming laps with Natasha or watching movies with Bucky on one particular afternoon, you spent the time instead preparing sketches of Wanda for a portrait. She had initially declined your offer to sit for a portrait.

“I’m not… of this place,” she tried to explain, gesturing around the Tower. You knew she did not stay there full time, that she was a patron deity of far-off Sokovia, but she was lovely and kind, and you wanted a chance to commit your acquaintance to memory, and to canvas.

She spoke a little about her own ascension as you worked. Her home country of Sokovia had been in tumult for years, and being you and idealistic, Wanda and her brother had joined the reform movement with great gusto. As the struggle became more violent, Wanda found herself vaulted into a position of high responsibility among the revolutionaries, and when the agents of government corruption came for them, they had died with honor and pride in what they were doing for their country. They were immediately praised as martyrs, their deaths providing the final push the rebellion needed to bring about an end to the era of corruption.

In Sokovia, Wanda was, with her brother, the twin god of justice, of sacrifice, and of the underdog. She was patroness of the heart and mind, and of deeper insight.

“There are some talents,” she whispered, and you realized that she wasn’t moving her lips at all, “That were with me long before my ascension.”


	11. Chapter 11

“He likes you, you know,” Wanda said aloud, startling you out of your reverie. You had been preparing your canvas with a few light brush strokes indicating major points of the image you were going to create, the preliminary sketches you had made of Wanda tacked all around your easel.

You frowned and peaked out from behind your canvas. “Hmm?” you said, pretending you hadn’t really heard her words at all even as a light blush rose in your cheeks.

Wanda smile slowly, a sweet indulgent little smile. “I said, he likes you. The Captain.”

You forced a small life. “I should hope so,” you agreed with a nod. “I’d hate to think he was letting me spend so much time here if he couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

Wanda laughed, the sound sweet to your ears, something akin to tinkling bells. She shook her head, watching you with a hint of gaiety in her eyes. For a martyr, you had often thought, she was rather cheerful and halcyon. You thought perhaps it was being beyond it all now -- beyond the war she had fought, beyond the pain and frustration she had experienced in her young life. She reminded you of the Captain in a way, joyful to be given another chance to help those she could not in her all too short lifetime.

She waved her slim fingers in the air and left a trail of shimmering red mist behind, shaped not at all unsubtly like a heart.

“You know what I am saying,” she responded, then made another short movement with her hand so that a misty arrow appeared and pierced the heart she had made. “It wouldn’t be the first time a god had fallen in love with a mortal,” she added, eyes still on the arrow. 

You barked a laugh at that; you couldn’t help yourself. You knew vaguely of the story of the Black Widow and Hawkeye, a vengeful god’s heart softened by the love of a mortal man. It was the sort of story you would have swooned over in young younger and less world-weary years, had you heard of it then. Those sorts of stories, you knew now, were as real to you as fairy tales. Sure, the there was the rare miracle that happened, just enough to give people foolish hopes, but not enough for a realist such as yourself to truly believe in.

Even if your realist former-almost-atheist self was conversing with an ethereal goddess in the stylish apartment of a kind and handsome god.

“I’d have better luck playing the lottery,” you told Wanda, shaking your head. The late afternoon light was casting shadows on her features that you rather liked, and you wondered if you shouldn’t rethink her portrait entirely. Natasha’s and Bucky’s had made them seem almost human, but Wand was something different: a martyr, a sorceress of sorts… it seemed to call for something a little more fanciful. You had visions of her staring forward, green eyes intense and alight with power, swirls of crimson in the air around her. A rebel and a revolutionary should be seen in that light, you thought.

 

You picked up a sketchpad and stepped away from your canvas, going back to the proverbial (and quite literal) drawing board. Wanda watched with interest, but didn’t comment on it, instead returning to her prior train of thought.

“They forget sometimes that I can hear them,” she said quietly, as though she were telling you some grand secret. “I don’t mean to listen but they can be so loud. Thinking, worrying… it can be overwhelming.”

“You can hear people’s thoughts?” you asked, blush growing deeper at the very notion, hand freezing in its motion across your sketchpad. You were a champion worrywart, your thoughts and anxieties running almost to the obsessive in the way you could get stuck in a rut, running over and over the same things in your mind.

Ridiculous, horrible things that could never happen.

Awful, embarrassing things that did happen.

Wonderful, lovely things that didn’t have a shot in hell happening.

“Not all the time, not on purpose,” Wanda explained, noting immediately the sudden spike in your anxiety. She smile gently and you felt a wave of cool calm wash over you; you took a deep breath and felt yourself relax enough to continue your sketches. You knew that she had done it, sent the sudden sense of tranquility to you, and you were glad for it. At least it quelled your worries enough to let you continue with your sketching.

Wanda watched you work a moment before broaching the topic again.

“The Captain, he thinks of you often,” she said quietly, watching you closely in case her words should send you spiraling again. “He very much likes having you here. You’ve made this place feel like home to him, for the first time.”

You shrugged, eyes still on your sketchpad. “Everyone likes having a pet,” you told her dryly.

She laughed, throwing her head back. “Oh, silly girl, you have no idea, do you?” she asked, shaking her head. Amusement sparkled deep in her eyes and there was a fondness to her smile that kept you at ease in spite of your words.

Frowning, you nudged her with your elbow, as though she were one of your oldest friends. “It’s pretty difficult to draw your face if your lips keep moving,” you told her in a sarcastic tone.

Wanda laughed again; she seemed unable to help herself. “The Captain… Steve… he is so fond of you, why can’t you see? He answered your prayer but I think, maybe, you answered his. He is happy and he is not alone anymore. You did that.”

“Steve lives in a magical Tower, surrounded by beautiful and powerful gods. He could have anyone he wanted, mortal or god,” you responded, shaking your head. “I’m just a screw-up who got desperate enough to beg him for help. He’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

She squinted at you then, as though she were thinking, reading you and the air around you. Reaching out, Wanda pressed the tips of two fingers to your temple.

“He kisses you here,” she said, voice dropped quiet, almost secretive. “He kisses you here everyday, because he wants to kiss your lips but he is afraid that it would scare you off. He kisses you here because you make him happy.”

Your eyes grew wide and you stared at the goddess; what she was saying was incredible, unbelievable, and yet… yet… There were times that you could swear that you felt his eyes on you, following you around the room. Moments somewhere between sleeping and wakefulness when you thought you could hear him speaking, telling you were beautiful. 

“Really?” you asked in a small voice. You knew that you liked Steve -- you liked him a lot. Most of the time, especially when you were alone, he seemed so human that it was easy to forget what he was. Times like that, it would be easy enough to just reach out and… but, no. No. You couldn’t possibly.

“He is waiting for you,” Wanda told you, answering your unasked questions. “He is afraid that you would think it demanded of you, if he showed his interest. So, he waits. And hopes.”


	12. Chapter 12

Wanda took her leave a little while after sunset; watching the blazing color in the sky behind her as she stood holding a pose for you had provided just the right inspiration you were looking for to continue her portrait. She had promised to return for another sitting before you put details on her face but you had enough to start lining in her portrait.

She paused at the door before she left, glancing back in at you and arching an eyebrow.

“Don’t leave him waiting too long,” she told you, and disappeared out the door.

You laughed it off. The idea that the Captain -- that Steve -- could be at all interested in you was just ludicrous. Of course he was kind, he was known as being one of the kinder gods. He decided to answer your prayer and that’s all that any of this was.

But, your traitor mind supplied, there were times when you were all but certain that you felt his eyes following, traveling down your legs on the days you weren’t bothered to dress in much behind pajama shorts and a tank top or traversing your form when you bent to retrieve a fallen piece of charcoal or paintbrush. 

You knew that you were attracted to Steve. There was no denying that. It took you a little time to realize it, too stunned by his initial appearance in the temple to really register and too overwrought by your entire debacle to let it really sink in. He was gorgeous, all perfectly sculpted muscles and brilliant blue doe eyes, all wrapped in a charming smile; better still, it seemed the heart beating beneath that strong chest was just beautiful as the rest of him.

He did kiss you on the forehead every day, just as Wanda had said, and there were times when your skin burned at the touch of his lips and you yearned to feel them all over your body. It embarrassed you a little, knowing that Wanda must know, wondering if Steve could tell how badly you wanted him.

But you held back. Forced yourself to remember that he wasn’t really a man at all, he was a god. Divine. Transcendent. Untouchable.

 

You brushed the thoughts away as best you could, throwing all of your energy into your portrait of Wanda. She was a lovely woman and it wasn’t difficult to make her beautiful on the canvas, though it felt different from any other time you had painted, save your portraits of Natasha and Bucky. There was a feeling of strange power that seemed to be flowing through your fingertips, into the brush in your hands. These things you were creating, you seemed to realize, were not just simple paint on canvas. 

There was something else. Something you couldn’t quite name, not yet, so you soldiered on, letting the creative energy wrap around you.

You were so distracted by your work that you didn’t even notice Steve returning, stepping quietly through the door with a bag of groceries in his arms. He set them on the counter and stepped lightly around it, watching you work in the dim light of a lamp you had switched on after the sun had set.

The canvas was by no means complete. You had Wanda’s shape outlined for the head-and-shoulders image you had planned, her hands held open in front of her to hold a swirling vortex of the red waves of energy she had created in the air before you, but you were concentrating on the background first. The blazing oranges and yellows fading into deep twilight blue of the setting sun would surround her, making her seem to glow if you pulled it off just right.

You never noticed Steve watching you, a small smile on his face as he surveyed your appearance: the old, worn jeans you had arrived in and a plain white t-shirt that was sizes too large for you, gleaned from Steve’s own closet and stained with a myriad of colors from all the work you had been doing. You had your hair pulled back and piled on your head, a messy bun with tendrils falling in your face and a tiny splatter of yellow paint caught on an errant curl, a streak of orange on your cheek.

“You’re amazing,” Steve murmured and you startled and jumped, tipping your palette off of its rest and flat against your hip.

Steve laughed and ambled your way, gently plucking the palette from where it had stuck to your body, leaving behind a mess of smeared paint in a variety of colors.

“Now I’m no expert,” he told, voice dropped low in an almost conspiratorial tone, “But I thought the point was to get the paint on the canvas, not on the artist?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, giving him a gentle shove away, careful not to transfer any paint to him in the process. He laughed and deposited the palette back in its place.

“Generally speaking, yes, but then most artists don’t contend with sneaky gods creepin’ up on them when they’re working,” you replied.

Steve smiled. “You don’t know that,” he told you, crossing his arms over his chest, eyebrows raised. “The old guys in Greece could be pretty creepy, from what I hear. Especially Zeus… but don’t tell him I said that,” he added with a wink.

 

You shook your head, unable to stop a small smile from coming to your lips. It was dim in Steve’s apartment, only a single lamp lit in the living area, and the day’s work had taken its toll on you. You yawned and stretched, collecting your brushes to wash.

“All done for the day?” Steve asked, turning the kitchen tap on for you as you walked over. You smiled as you dipped your brushes into the stream, the water lukewarm and perfect for washing out the acrylic paint you had been using. There was even a small puddle of dishwashing liquid on a saucer that you hadn’t seen him set out, and a small soft towel to dab your brushes dry.

It made you stop and think for a moment. Steve could do all of these things with a snap of his fingers if he so desired; gods were omnipotent for the most part, after all. But he still took his time and laid things out with his hands, spending his days living as a human alongside you while worked.

Maybe there was something to what Wanda kept saying after all.

 

“All clean?” Steve asked, watching as you patted your brushes dry.

“The brushes are clean,” you agreed. You turned to face him and drew in a sharp breath, not realizing how close he was standing. “The artist, on the other hand, could use a shower,” you continued.

Steve leaned forward and took your face in his hands, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. He was smiling down at you when he pulled away and you felt a small sense of wonder as you looked up at him. His blue eyes were so bright and so full of… something.

Something you maybe weren’t ready to name.

But you felt something changing between you, and a new surge of confidence. You stood up on your toes and returned a very soft kiss to the tip of his nose; Steve grinned in response.

“I’m going to go take a very quick shower,” you told him. “And then we can figure out how we want to spend the rest of the night.”


	13. Chapter 13

You eyed the tub for a long moment before heaving a sigh and turning towards the shower stall. Much as you might like to luxuriate among the bubbles, tonight wasn’t a night for shutting out the world and hiding in the hot water. The shower was a utilitarian endeavor, to wash away a day’s worth of paint and sweat from your work, and to give you a few moments to muddle over more of what Wanda had implied.

It wasn’t as though you hadn’t thought about it before now. Steve was an attractive man, there was no denying that. It wasn’t even his ascension that made him that way, you were sure of it; even outside of his physical form -- which was, admittedly, stunning -- there was such a gentleness to his nature, a willingness and even need to help where he could, and an inherent kindness. You knew that even outside of all of this, if he were just a man you met on the street somewhere or bumped into in a supermarket, he would have caught your eye.

And you thought maybe, just maybe, you might have caught his.

 

You thought back to your early days at the Tower, when you had emerged from a luxurious bath wearing Steve’s bathrobe. His eyes had widened at that, perhaps even grown a little darker.

He liked it, you realized. He liked seeing you wearing his clothes, his bathrobe. Maybe it was the unspoken intimacy of it, the idea that the soft terrycloth of his robe was all that kept you from baring everything to him. Or the thought that something of his was folded around you, caressing your body in a way that he would love to do, if given the chance.

And you remembered what he said to you, before he brought you to the Tower: that everything was your choice, and you wouldn’t be compelled to do anything that you didn’t want to do. It made you think that maybe, even then, some part of him knew that even with all of his gentlemanly ways, that he wanted more than to just lend a helping hand.

Perhaps that had been it all along -- not why he had come to your rescue, no, you knew that in his heart of hearts, Steve was an altruistic man and he had simply been prepared to help you in any way he could -- but something inside of him recognized early on that he would grow fonder of you than he would let on.

That he wouldn’t want just another worshiper, another grateful prayer sent up into the heavens after he returned you home, all of your problems solved.

Steve would want you completely -- to be his, and only his, in every way imaginable.

You thought of what you had heard Natasha and Wanda speaking about, your first morning waking up in the Tower. Steve hadn’t brought anyone there before, in all the years he had spent living in there. He had never taken a ‘favorite’. The connotations of that word were heavier than you were ready to contemplate, but tonight? Tonight you thought that you were perhaps ready to at least broach the topic.

 

You rinsed the last of the shampoo from your hair and turned off the water, stepping out of the shower stall and toweling off quickly. You gave your hair a cursory once-over with the blow dryer and paused as you stepped towards the set of fresh clothes you had set out to wear. Just beside where they sat on the counter was the slate cabinet where you knew that Steve’s bathrobe hung.

You bit your lip; it would certainly be one way to test your theory.

 

Steve had his back to you, standing in the kitchen area, when you stepped out into the living area, the steam from the bathroom dissipating out into the coolness of the loft. 

“I thought you might be hungry,” Steve called at the sound of the door. He turned to face you with a large glass bowl in his hands. “I made some pop… corn.”

He stared, eyes wide in the dim room. He had paused when he saw you, clearly surprised at the sight before him. There you stood, damp hair falling in little curling tendrils around your face, wearing only his dark blue bathrobe, the tie loose enough to show an ample amount of leg. 

“You don’t mind, do you?” you asked, twisting one end of the tie in your hand.

“No… no, not at all,” Steve said, shaking his head. His eyes never left you; you found it difficult not to smirk. “I keep telling you to just make yourself at home,” he reminded.

“You do, don’t you?” you replied with a smile.You gestured towards the sofa. “Let’s go sit down. You can tell me about your day.”

 

You loved hearing about what Steve did when he left his loft and went out into the world. You were content to stay and work on your portfolio and hear about the world beyond the steel and glass walls of the Tower when Steve returned. You had always considered the gods cold and remote -- if they truly existed at all -- but Steve was the real deal, spending his days lending a helping hand to those who needed it.   
The popcorn sat long forgotten on the coffee table as you settled together on the couch, you pulling your feet up to nestle into his side as he put his arm over your shoulders. You stared out at the stars as Steve told you about his day: giving a little girl the courage she needed to stand up to her bullying older brothers, helping an underdog peewee hockey team beat the the haughty and cheating state champions, and simply sitting in a courthouse behind a battered woman, giving her the strength to testify against the man who had beaten her. 

“It’s not all sad things, though,” Steve told you, his hand heavy and warm on your back, absently rubbing slow circles though. “Sometimes it’s little things. Scrappy little dog, looking for a home. Coffee shop waitress, passing the alley where the pup lives. A little inspiration strikes and the pup has a home, the girl has a new best friend.”

You tilted your head to look up at him and smiled. “You’re amazing, Steve.”

He laughed softly. “Just doin’ my job, doll.”

“No,” you said, sitting up a little and shaking your head. “You really are. Not because you’re a god, just because… because you have a good heart.” You reached out and pressed your palm against his chest as you spoke, feeling his sharp intake of breath at his touch.

And then his eyes were on yours, breaths coming fast and quiet, and you knew, _you knew_ that he was about to kiss you.

And then he did.

Lips so soft and satiny, moving against yours as his heart beat wildly in his chest, the arm that had been over your shoulders slipping down so his palm rested just on your lower back. He murmured your name, deepening the kiss, his eyes closed and his arms pulling you ever closer.

It wasn’t just an idea anymore, not just a theory, you knew it was true -- Steve wanted you, he really wanted you. And gods, you wanted him too.

You slipped out of his embrace and his eyes fluttered open, brows knit in confusion. He said your name in confusion, the single word a question, wondering why you had stopped. You gave him a devilish grin and slipped away from him, settling on the floor before him and reaching to palm him through his jeans. His interest was more than clear.

Steve’s breath was still coming fast. “What are you…?” he mumbled. “You don’t have to…”

You could only smirk in response. “Steve,” you admonished with a coquettish wink. “You’re a god. Don’t you think it’s about time I got on my knees and paid my respects?”


	14. Chapter 14

You’re not sure how long you spend in Steve’s bed, that first time. Time moved differently in the Tower and he could keep you from experiencing any fatigue. All you felt was heat and pleasure, the sinful sweetness of Steve’s touch, his large hands and his soft lips, his perfect body pressing you down into the mattress.

You didn’t want it to end, not ever. 

The sky stayed dark outside the windows and Steve held you close. You reached your peak more times than you could count, Steve always following just after with your name on his lips. Steve was a talker, always telling you how beautiful you were, how amazing you made him feel, gasping your name in moments of intense pleasure. 

Steve never seemed satisfied and, really, neither were you. You felt like you were flying, the constant waves of bliss sweeping through you enough to draw tears from your eyes. You were content to stay there, slave to his every whim, for as long as he’d have you.

When it was over, when the god in your arms was finally sated, he didn’t let you go. Steve held you close, cuddled against his chest, and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“Sorry,” he mumbled sleepily. “It’d been a real long time for me. I hope I didn’t… you know, make you uncomfortable or…?”

“Are you kidding me?” you replied, words falling from your lips in a lazy tumble. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this good, baby.” You didn’t even notice the name you had used for him, but Steve did, and even in his own fatigue, he grinned.

“Good,” he agreed, kissing you again, this time soft and sweet against your lips. “I’m glad.”

You hummed in appreciation and curled closer into his chest, letting your eyes close and the warmth and comfort of his closeness draw you to sleep.

The loft was bathed in the soft glow of sunrise when you woke again, the light dancing across Steve’s features where he lay beside you. His eyes are open, bright and impossibly blue, and he smiles to see you staring back. The loft feels cool and comfortable, the bedclothes soft and clean against your skin -- one of the perks, you assume, to sharing a bed with a god.

Steve draws in a long breath, fingertips reaching out to trace the shape of your cheekbone, your jaw, and across your lips.

“And here I was thinking you couldn’t possibly be any more beautiful,” he told you with a sigh. 

You ducked your head. “Steve…” you mumbled, embarrassed.

“I mean it,” he told you earnestly, and propped himself up on his elbow. “I’ve seen so much of the world… from the very worst to the very best. Human kindness, nature in all its glory… but I swear on all of it, I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous as the way you opened your eyes and smiled at me just now.”

You felt your cheeks heat with a deep blush, unable to meet his eyes, and leaned forward to press your face against his chest. He chuckled softly at your reaction and ran his fingers through your hair.

“Whatsamatter, doll? Can’t take a compliment?” he teased.

“You were laying it on a little thick there, Captain,” you told him, voice muffled as you refused to look up at him still. You knew you’d see it there, the open honesty in his eyes, and it would just be too much. Because if you saw it, you’d believe it, and if you believed, well… that would open up a whole new set of problems.

“I’d never lie to you, sweetheart,” Steve told you, tilting his chin down to breathe in the scent of your hair. “Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned, don’t know how to say it right for you but… I… I’m just so glad you’re here.”

You couldn’t help the way you smiled against his chest. “Me too,” you agreed softly.

 

You knew from the moment you finally decided to rouse from the bed that it was not going to be a productive day for you. Your body still ached pleasantly, the burn settled deep into your muscles like the remnants of a hard workout, and you felt Steve’s eyes following you, tracing your form wherever you moved. It was though a door had been opened between you; now that he knew he had permission, Steve didn’t shy away from looking, the clear want in his eyes and even hungry way he watched you leaving you feeling almost giddy.

He caught you in the kitchen, slipping behind you as you tried to fill a pot with water for coffee, his hands on your hips and his lips at your shoulder. You smiled and shivered, pushing your backside against him laughing softly when he groaned.

“How long did you have me in your bed, and you still want more?” you teased. You were already feeling flushed and needy, high on the feeling of just being so wanted. Needed, even.

“I lost track of the time, if I’m bein’ honest,” his voice rumbled low beneath your ear. “But if you’re game to try again, I’ll try and keep better track.” You laughed and turned in his arms, thoughts of a morning cup of coffee long since forgotten. 

“Doesn’t the world need you, Captain?” you only half-teased.

He didn’t respond immediately, only dipped his mouth to catch yours, the kiss deep and sparking with an intensity that drew you in like a moth to a flame. Breath be damned -- oxygen? What’s that? You just wanted to stay in his moment, his lips moving against yours, the heat of his tongue licking against yours, his hands gripping tighter at your waist when you move yours to tangle in his hair.

It was perfect. Everything was perfect. You could die in that moment and be happy. You were breathless when Steve pulled away and still whined at the loss.

“Time moves different here,” he reminded. “We could be right here, right now, as long as you wanted. If you need the sunlight, I’ll bring you the sun. If you want it to be night time, I’ll call down the stars. Anything you want, for as long as you want… just you an’ me…”

As if you could say no to that.

“The stars,” you whispered, breath dancing across his lips as you spoke. “Steve, I want the stars.” The words had barely left your lips when the room began to dim, the sun outside the windows giving way to the inky dark of midnight, glittering stars scattered across the black velvet of the sky like a handful of diamonds shining down upon you both.


	15. Chapter 15

It was some time before you were able to completely disentangle from Steve and try to do something productive. He didn’t want to leave you, the both of you still so wrapped up in whatever it was that was happening between you that any absence, even for a little while, was deeply felt. Steve stuck around the loft, quietly watching you work.

Sometimes, in the quieter moments, you’d hear the gentle scratch of soft lead against thick paper and you’d smile to yourself, knowing Steve was somewhere nearby, sketchpad and pencil in hand. You’d caught him at it more than once, watching you, drawing you while you worked. You’d even woken up to it, enjoying the bashful way he’d smile, eyes crinkling at the corners and cheeks going pink, when you’d catch him. More than once you’d woken to find charcoal streaks on the sheets and a sketchpad shoved beneath a pillow. It was terribly endearing.

The day Tony Stark came to sit for his portrait, Steve had decided to leave you to it and take some time out in the world.

“We don’t always get along so well,” he explained, nodding his head towards the door.

You frowned. “But isn’t this Tower his? All of the stories say you’re friends.”

Steve gave you an indulgent smile. “The stories aren’t always perfect on the details,” he told you. “All of us here… it’s not a mistake. We’re all… intertwined, in a way. Crossing paths in life and death. Tony and I are friends. We just don’t see eye to eye on everything and, well… I just think maybe, it would be better if I spent the day somewhere else.”

“Because he brought someone to the Tower once,” you filled in, remembering the story now. “Because he brought a mortal here and it didn’t… it didn’t end well.”

Steve didn’t answer at first, only pressed his forehead to yours and then dipped his head to kiss you, slow and languid and sweet. It seemed sometimes that all he had to do was touch you and you’d feel it, an almost intoxicating elation, all the way from your tingling lips down to your toes and back again. There was power in his touch, magic in his kiss. It was becoming in addiction.

“Tony ascended from life,” Steve told you, still holding you close once the kiss had ended. “He was mortal and then he wasn’t. It happens sometimes. He gave the rest of us this place, a real home, and we’re all grateful. But we’re from different times… we found our way here on different paths. Sometimes we have to take a step back.”

“He doesn’t like me being here?” you asked in a small voice. Everyone had been so nice, even the Soldier -- Bucky, you had to remind yourself, he told you to call him Bucky -- and you had been so frightened of him at first.

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve told you, sighing softly and pushing a stray lock of your hair behind your ear. “Even if he didn’t want you here, know what I’d do? I’d take you someplace else, someplace better. Someplace all our own. But he knows I want you here and he won’t interfere.”

Another kiss, this time to your forehead, and you melted against him.

“I don’t deserve any of this, you know?” you mumbled against his chest. “You’ve been so good to me, and I’ve… I’m…”

“You make me happy,” Steve told you simply, strong arms held tight around you. “That’s more than enough.”

“So am I going to be immortalized on the canvas, or should I come back after you two are finished with your… fraternizing?” a loud, brassy voice interrupted.

You both heard and felt the sigh that escaped Steve. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said, leaving another lingering kiss on your lips before letting you go.

“Hey, by all means, continue,” Tony cut in, hands shoved deep into the pockets of what looked to be a perfectly tailored suit. “Certainly wouldn’t want to interrupt someone making a man out of you, Cap.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said, eyes on Tony and voice carrying an unspoken warning to behave.

“We’ll be here!” Tony chirped cheerfully in reply, and you couldn’t help the small chuckle it drew from you as you watched Steve step out the door. Turning back to Tony once you were alone, you smiled.

“So, Mr. Stark,” you said in a friendly tone. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

 

They called him Iron Man; part of it was his steely resolve in his business endeavors, part of due to the brilliant mechanical designs he created. It was a little before your time, but it seemed everyone who had lived in the city in the 90’s had a story of seeing Tony Stark flit past, flying high into the sky in the amazing metal suit he had created. He had been adored enough in his lifetime, lauded the world over, that one day he simply ascended and became a living god.

You kept him talking while you made your initial sketches, curious as to how a man could ascend to the divine without shuffling off the mortal coil.

“So what was it about you, Tony?” you asked, using his first name after he insisted you do so, flirty wink and coy grin and all. You had made a fair number of sketches already, quick to get the shape of his face and the curve of his smile down, but struggling to capture his eyes; large and round and holding mirth, yes, but something else too. Something deeper.

“You mean apart from my winning personality?” he teased.

You snorted. “There aren’t many gods who ascended in life. I always thought that death was a huge part of it. Dying a legend. Or a hero.”

Tony smirked. “Like your Captain?” he asked, smirking. “Our valiant golden boy, giving his life to save others, blah blah blah…?” He knew he struck a nerve when you blushed and ducked behind your easel.

“He’s not _mine_ ,” you mumbled.

“Oh no?” Tony asked, eyebrows raised. “Wouldn’t be so sure of that, dear.”

You cleared your throat. “We were talking about you, Tony, not me. Or Steve.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight on the stool that Steve had set up for your portrait subjects to use, shaking one foot against the wooden crossbars.

“What can I say? Billionaire. Genius. It has it perks,” Tony replied flippantly.

“By that token, there should be a few more gods like you,” you told him. 

Tony snorted. “There’s nobody else like me,” he countered, and you laughed.

“I’ll agree with you on that one,” you told him, nodding. “There aren’t many gods who have a place like this, who invite others in. I’m from California; our gods are vain and jealous. They don’t play so nice with each other. You’re different. You have… like… a family here.”

You were surprised to see Tony’s expression soften. “You could say that,” he agreed, the jovial quality of his voice tamped down just a little.

“What about your real family?” you asked. “What happened to them when you became a god?”

“They were all gone by then,” Tony said, a sigh marking his words. You had meant the question to be innocent -- small talk, even -- but it seemed to strike a chord within the god and the mood in the room changed.

Tony started to _talk_.

He told you about his family: a distant father, as brilliant as his son would grow to be but still living in his own past, haunted by decisions he made in his youth. Blaming himself for the loss of a man he considered a good friend. Tony found himself growing up in the shadow of a man who had ascended long before he was born, listening to his father’s stories about the man who would become a god, who became the Captain. Trying to live up to an ideal that was impossible to match.

A mother who was loving but far too passive, younger than her husband an too quick to step aside and let his will dominate their family. A woman who saw the fierce idolatry in her son’s eyes and knew it would never be enough, but said nothing.

He told you about the things he did behind the scenes, the quiet flipside to his money-making ventures, funneling funds into every charitable endeavor he could find. Tony’s father had been an inventor and a mogul; Tony would do better than that, anoint himself under the mantle of billionaire-genius-philanthropist. The love he didn’t feel at home came from the world at large until the day he closed his eyes to sleep and found it wouldn’t come, his head filled with the whispers and the pleading of dozens upon dozens of people thinking of him, asking the universe for a small jolt of inspiration, a smattering of wisdom in his name.

And Tony found himself wanting to help them, to quiet the voices and ease their worries; much to his surprise, he realized he could, with little more than a thought at times. 

“And now here we are,” Tony told you, gesturing around the loft grandly, a lively but somehow false sparkle in his deep brown eyes.

“Mmhmm,” you hummed, nodding and trying to frame the quick study of those eyes in lashes that would do the god justice. “There’s more though, isn’t there?”

Tony shrugged. He had discarded his suit jacket some time before and loosened his tie, rolling the sleeves of his white pin-striped dress shirt up to his elbows.

“You want to hear about the time I saved New York from a nuke?” he suggested cheerfully.

You peeked at him from behind your easel. “No,” you said, after a beat. “I want to hear about Pepper.”


	16. Chapter 16

The story of Iron Man and Pepper Potts was a fable -- a legend. It was taught not only to the children who grew up in New York but seemed to stretch out, by word of mouth, up and down the eastern seaboard. It wasn’t just another Tale of the Gods -- like the story of Iron Man’s Flight, when the god was still a man and saved his city from certain annihilation, carrying an armed nuclear weapon up into tear in the fabric of space, or the story of the Captain’s Rescue Mission, when he broached enemy lines in the War to bring home men, soldiers who were considered lost. The story of Pepper Potts wasn’t meant to aggrandize the gods in the minds of those who worshipped them -- it was a warning.

You do not pledge your life to a god, it told you. You do not remain at the side of a mortal man who finds a divine mission and ascends. And most important -- the absolutely most important part of the story -- _you do not fall in love with a god_.

There were similar stories the world over. Psyche. Yamato. Mary Magdalene. Even worse were those who had allowed a god to fall for them: Persephone. Endymion. Cassandra. It just never ended well. Gods were to be worshiped, praised and lauded. They were not meant for mere affection, not for lust or comfort. 

You could light your candles, say your prayers, sleep soundly in the perceived knowledge that your god would protect you, but you were not meant to love them.

Something had opened up in Tony while he sat for his portrait; he began to speak in an honest, candid way that that you suspected he hadn’t done in quite some time. There was a certain fondness that fell over his features, a softness to his gaze as he spoke.

“Pepper,” he spoke with a small sigh, arms crossed over his chest. “Well. Not much one to pry, are you?”

“I’m not exactly twisting your arm,” you told him. Your charcoal was flying over your easel; this is the look you wanted. This was the real Tony Stark.

Tony sighed again. “They’ve written books about her.”

“They’ve written books about you. Most of it is PR, isn’t it?” you countered. Tony gave you a very unimpressed look and then rolled his eyes.

“ _Fine_ ”, he relented, and began to tell you their story.

 

Pepper hadn’t been Pepper when she first met Tony; she was Virginia, just another young woman trying to make a living in the city. She’d worked her way up from reception positions, temp positions, small time secretary jobs, until she had become a personal assistant for a man she couldn’t really stand. She knew who Tony was by then -- everyone did, really -- and when he arrived for a meeting with her boss, he could see the distaste on her face for the both of them.

Tony had a reputation then, known as something of a womanizer. Combined with the way her boss kept trying to grab her ass, the idea of being in a room with the two of them made her ill.

But something changed. Something clicked. She saw something in Tony that others perhaps didn’t -- and she saw the way his eyes narrowed, the way he frowned, when her idiot boss tried to put an unwelcome hand on her.

When he was leaving, he gave her his card.

“There’s always an opening in the secretary pool,” Tony had offered. It would be a paycut, a demotion of sorts. But she wanted out. 

He smiled when he saw her getting the orientation tour at his company, some three weeks later. He started calling her ‘Pepper’, owing to the fondness he had for her freckles, and all it took was for the boss to use it once before everyone picked up on it.

Pepper didn’t mind. At least it made her stand out a little.

It wasn’t as though it gave her a leg up -- she worked hard and she worked well, she fought her way up from a member of the secretary pool to Tony Stark’s personal assistant on her own merit. And then -- _only_ then -- did things begin to change.

The attraction had been there from the start. Tony would never deny it if asked, though few seldom did. Pepper was a lovely woman, all bright eyes and freckles and strawberry blonde hair, but it was something beyond that. She was smart and pragmatic, no-nonsense in a world where people kissed Tony’s ass on the regular. 

When he got himself into trouble, she was there. When he fell into a rut, she pulled him out. When the world thought he was dead -- a deal gone bad overseas, held captive, forced to work and creating a means of escape rather than the weaponry his captors wanted -- and he came back to life, _she_ was there.

Tears in her eyes. Relief on her face. Not for her own security, no, but for his safe return. To sleep that night knowing that Tony was alive and well, if a little worse for wear. And that was when he began to realize that what he felt or her wasn’t the same s the fleeting attractions he’d found with others over the years. It was something else. Something more.

 

He didn’t lay a finger on her until after he’d ascended. The Tower had taken on some mystical qualities, owing somehow to the way it was tied to him, a building that was as much a part of Tony as his body and soul, and he helped Pepper move the base of operations for Stark International elsewhere, because it was hers now; he didn’t need it anymore, beyond things like wealth and industry. Pepper was the only one he trusted with his legacy.

It probably would have been best if he’d never kissed her. If she hadn’t fit into his arms like she belonged there. If he hadn’t found ways to show her what he couldn’t say -- that he loved her, that he needed her, that his life felt real and important because she was a part of it, that he can’t remember the things he fear anymore because the worst of the world fell away when she turned that soft smile on him.

It probably would have been best for both of them if he had just let her be. She could have found happiness in the world without him, he thought, if he hadn’t been so selfish.

But he loved her. And he needed her. So she still worked and lived as a mortal but came home each night to his bed in a place that was outside of time; the Tower stood high in the New York skyline and anyone could see it, but as the last employee left and it became something else, something other, mortal men couldn’t find it anymore. They could walk towards it, where it once stood, where it should have been, but it just wasn’t there. Only Pepper could find her way back.

Until the day she didn’t want to anymore.

“It was too hard. Too much,” Tony said with a shrug, trying to sound nonchalant, as though he weren’t discussing his own heartbreak. “She was aging. I wasn’t. She was living a real life out in the world and I was tucked up here in the Tower.”

“You couldn’t have stopped that, right?” you asked quietly.

Tony gave a short nod. “I could have made her an immortal. Kept her here forever. With me,” he agreed, and cast his eyes down to the floor. “But she didn’t want that. She wanted to live her life and I couldn’t ask her to give any more up for me.” He looked up again and his eyes met yours, dark and serious and devastated. “You think I don’t want you here. That’s not true. Me and Cap butt heads from time to time but we’re all family here. I want to see my family happy. I don’t want to see them hurt.”

 

When Steve came home, Tony had left for the day. He would return a few more times for you to make studies of color and light, to perfect the portrait, but you had much of what you needed already there on your canvas. 

Steve found you curled up on the couch, watching the unchanging sky outside of the floor to ceiling windows. It was quiet and dark in the loft, and he frowned.

“Babydoll?” he asked quietly. “Are you alright?”

You smiled a little at the pet name but it was a sad smile. It was pained. Steve could see the tears in your eyes and he moved quickly to your side, shifting to his knees on the floor alongside where you lay.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, aarm in his voice. “Did Tony…?”

You shook your head. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” you told him, and you moved to sit up.

Steve took your face in his hands and pressed his lips to yours. “I know you’re not,” he said quietly. “I can see it in your eyes. Tell me what’s wrong. I promise, I can make it better.”

“I don’t belong here,” you told him, voice low. “I shouldn’t be here, with you. I’m only going to hurt you.”

“No,” Steve said firmly, shaking his head. “You being here? That’s making my life better. That’s making me happy. You won’t hurt me -- when you want to go, you can go, and I will be happy… I will be… I will be _honored_ for the time you spent here with me, you understand?”

“Steve, you can’t know that!” you said. You were crying now; you felt like a fool. You should have known better than to try this, than to allow yourself to believe you could leave this unscathed. 

“I can,” he told you, shaking his head at your words. His eyes were bright -- you wondered inwardly if those were unshed tears or you were imagining it -- but he was smile. He pulled you from the couch so easily, sliding into his lap on the floor; you wrapped yourself around him, unable to stop, needing to feel his solid warmth against you.

Everything had become so confusing. You wanted more than anything to be there in his arms but were still so afraid you could hurt him, bring sadness to the heart that had shown you so much kindness and, dare you even think it, love.

“I can,” Steve repeated softly, pressing his face down into the softness of your hair. Over and over he told you, gently rocking you in his arms and kissing wherever he could: your hair, youre forehead, the tip of your nose, your lips. You realized then that whatever you wanted was immaterial.

It was too late. You were too far gone. 

You already loved him. You had the sneaking suspicion that he felt the same.


	17. Chapter 17

If there was anything you would count yourself an expert in, it was compartmentalizing. You had done it so well with Brandon, taking all of the hurt and fear and bad feeling he instilled in you and tamping it down into little mental boxes, storing it away where you could forget. Focusing only on the good so that you didn’t have to deal with the bad.

You’d wondered, now and again in your lifetime, how people ever stayed with partners who were so clearly bad news. It was like reading a bad romance novel or watching one of those terrible Lifetime movies; there was always an Evil Ex to contend with, or an Evil Girlfriend who treated the romantic lead so poorly that you’d root for the heroine to come along and steal him away.

You’d joked to friends that if the lead was such a catch, how could they have gotten wrapped up with someone so awful?

You didn’t really understand it until Brandon, realizing the way you had hidden things away, even from yourself. He might not have ever raised a hand to you but he was killing you all the same, beating away at every good thought inside of you, chipping at everything that made you whole. You were glad you had finally woken up to see what was happening, and put an end to it. It never occurred to you that the same process could work in reverse.

By morning light you had convinced yourself that you had nothing to worry about. You were getting the work done that you needed to graduate; that was the most important thing. So you were spending time alongside a very attractive man, who just happened to be divine in nature. So what? Of _course_ you would have flirted. Of _course_ it would have gotten physical. You were only human, after all, and the lore did say that the gods had their appetites as well.

It was all temporary; you knew that. So did the Captain. You couldn’t hurt him when neither of you expected any more than a flight. Right? Right.

“You’re amazing,” Steve pronounced, watching you begin to lay color on your canvas. You’d made some sketch notes and taken a few mental images of Tony that morning, committing to memory the way the light played against his skin tone, the deep russet tones to his dark hair, and then sent him on his way.

You chuckled softly. “You’ve said that before,” you scolded in a teasing tone. You didn’t turn to face him but you heard him move, slipping down from the stool alongside the open kitchen countertop where he had been sitting and watching you were. You couldn’t help but smile when you felt his strong arms encircle your waist from behind.

“Astounding?” he offered, lips right next to your ear as he softly spoke. “Phenomenal? I’d go with ‘breath-taking’ but I’m afraid I’d be commenting on more than just your artistic talent with that phrase.” He pressed a gentle kiss just below your ear, making you giggle.

“Steve,” you reminded, tone not the least bit serious, “I have work to do.”

“Of course you do,” Steve agreed readily, hands slipping a little lower onto your hips. “I’m just watching you work. You know I like to watch.”

You blushed as bright as the crimson paint you had been mixing on your palette; painting Iron Man without his suit would have seemed wrong on its own, so you had planned on making the background of the portrait washed in shades of red and ochre, as a reminder of the armor he had worn.

“Oh, she’s blushing,” Steve teased, lips so close to your ear that they brushed the lobe as he spoke. His hands moved from, your hips to pluck the brush and pallette from yours, setting them on the small work table alongside your canvas. “All flushed and warm. What a shame, poor sweet girl. Overworking herself, I suspect. Better give her a nice, long break to relax.”

You gasped when Steve lifted you up off the ground, breaking into peals of laughter when he carried you to the couch and flopped down on his back, holding you tight against his chest. You wriggled in his arms until you lay flat on your belly against him, tilting back your shoulders and lifting your head so you could see his face.

Steve was beaming. “Well hey there darlin’,” he teased. “Fancy meetin’ you here.”

You arched an eyebrow. “Gotta be honest, Captain. I never pegged you as such a ladies’ man.” Steve laughed, the low rumbled in his chest reverberating into your own where you lay against him.

“Never have been,” he replied honestly. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from touching you, one hand playing with your hair while the other rubbed slowly up and down your back. “Bucky, now he was the fella all the girls were after, even before he was a military man, drawin’em in with a sharp uniform. Me, I was hopeless. Even when he helped me get a date, I’d blow it in an instant.”

You couldn’t help but smile. Unguarded moments like these, when Steve was bright and open and the accent of his mortal youth surfaced, were among your very favorites in the Tower. It almost made you feel like this was all normal -- like he was just some regular guy you had met along the way and fallen for, like you weren’t some cloistered Rapunzel hidden away in the Tower of the gods. You tried not to think on it too hard, what it would be like if Steve was just a man, another mortal. Someone you were allowed to keep. Someone you were allowed to love.

“Let me take you out,” Steve said suddenly, breaking you from your dark train of thought.

“Hmm?” you said, frowning. “But if we leave, wouldn’t that…?” you trailed off, trying to find the right way to verbalize your thoughts. As far as you knew, the expanse of time you had been gifted would only hold so long as you didn’t leave; Steve wouldn’t change the past, he had told you that from the start, and if you left with him it would eat up what time you had of the future before you needed to turn in your work.

“I wouldn’t be taking you home,” Steve reasoned. “And I wouldn’t be taking you into your own past. We can go somewhere else. Where were you… last June?”

You frowned. “Uh… in my apartment? Working at Starbucks and taking a summer seminar in Renaissance art.”

“Perfect,” Steve told you, grinning. “So… have you ever been to Paris?”

 

Before you could really fathom what he was suggesting, you found yourself walking along the Seine with Steve, arm in arm. It was a warm sunny day and the air was perfumed with flowers in full bloom. In the back of your mind, you understood to some degree that you -- the real you, the you that had lived these hours once before -- was back in New York, working a double shift slinging coffee at the campus Starbucks. And now here you were, walking upriver towards Notre Dame, feeling warm and happy and free.

“It’s beautiful here,” you said quietly, voice almost in awe. Paris was still just a city, and to those who lived and worked there it must seem like any other day, but to you it was almost heaven. Even as traffic and tour buses passed, as people jostled you passing by, it was still so perfect that you could barely believe you were there.

“You put the scenery to shame, doll,” Steve told you with a smile, and you blushed even as you grinned at his words.

“Not a ladies’ man, huh?” you teased, nudging him with your hip as you passed a row of small artists’ stalls and paused to look at their wares. Most were small watercolor scenes of the river or famous Paris landmarks, but one in particular stood out to you. It was a view of the Seine but it seemed so familiar; you almost gasped when you realized it, the two most prominent figures in the image walking with their backs to the view of the artist were more than familiar -- it was you and Steve.

The dress you had worn for the outing had been one Natasha had brought for you, but you hadn’t chanced to wear it until that day, cream-colored and printed with tiny little flowers. It was almost perfectly recreated in miniature for the painting, Steve’s strong arm around your waist, holding you close.

The artist was a hobbled old man, his eyes, once green, now bearing a milky pale filme. Your brow arched in surprised, realizing that he was blind. One gnarled hand reached with surprising deftness to pluck the painting from its stand and hold it out to Steve.

“Pour vous, mon Capitaine!” the old man exclaimed. Steve took it gently in his hand, marveling at the image as much as you had.

“Merci, Guillaume,” Steve told him. He gave you the painting and took the old man’s hands in his own. “Comment puis-je vous rembourser?”

Guillaume laughed gayly, and pointed a bony finger towards a makeshift altar in his stall, a little plastic candle burning on battery power. There were aged newspaper clippings tacked there, protected in plastic bags. One showed cheering troops with a young man, front and center, who looked very much like the old artist. The other showed a large photo of Steve in his uniform, with a headline proclaiming “Jeune Capitaine Américain Sacrifie La Vie Pour Nous Sauver Tous!!!”.

You didn’t need to have taken high school French to know what it said.

“Tu m'as déja payé mille fois,” Guillaume said, and pulled Steve’s hands up to kiss them. “Prend soins! Je te verrai dans la prochaine vie!”

No one stopped; no one looked. There were perhaps not many devotees of the Captain left in France and he may not have turned many heads, but you suspected that he had taken some sort of cover to hide you both from prying eyes. The blind artist, a many who painted what had yet to be and could see without seeing, had a sight beyond his eyes. He had known you were coming all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, MANY thanks to @[KyloPoePoeHux](http://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloPoePoeHux), for fixing my translations!


	18. Chapter 18

The watercolor was given a place of honor in the Captain’s loft, perched on a small easel on a shelf that drew the eye as soon as anyone entered. It seemed somehow to fit in perfectly; the space had been bare before, as though Steve knew that someday he’d have something important to place there but hadn’t found it just yet. It makes you feel a little strange to see it sometimes -- a jumble of emotions from joy to unease to curiosity. There’s something there -- something to it that you just can’t place just yet, on the tip of your tongue but still out of reach.

You try not to think about it.

After your jaunt into Paris, you threw yourself back into your work. Tony sat for you only once more, again while Steve was away; you happened to glance at him once at you froze, seeing not the grinning god sitting before you but someone else, someone younger, weaker, more open. The image stayed clear in your mind and you knew you wouldn’t need him to sit for you again. It was like a photograph in a mental album, and you worked from it for hours after he had gone.

Your portrait of Tony was not just of the Man of Iron that he had become, but the flesh and blood man beneath the suit that still remained inside of him. His arms crossed over his chest, leaning forward just a little bit, the shadow of a smirk on his features, but expression still open and honest, eyes pained and vulnerable. The barest hint of a bruise alongside of his right eye. The man that had ascended, loved, lost, and still wore on.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Steve told you when he returned, eyes alight with wonder and a smile on his face as he surveyed your work. “You _see_ them. All of them.”

You gave a shrug, rinsing your brushes at the sink. You were wearing one of his shirts, a button-down that hung low against your thighs, covered with paint from your long day of work.

“I’m nothing special,” you muttered, smiling a little when you turned to find him standing just behind you.

Steve shook his head, the small smile on his face nothing short of amazed. “You really believe that, don’t you?” he asked.

 

He insisted that you sit for him. He’d sketched you before, while you were working or puttering around the loft, but nothing ever planned or posed. It was easy to forget sometimes that he wasn’t just the Captain, the stalwart soldier; there had been a man there, live and in the flesh, before he had taken up arms, a man who saw beauty in the world and tried to capture it with a pencil pressed to paper. That was why you had sought out his altar in the campus temple so long ago, after all: the god of the soldier and sacrifice, but also a patron of the arts. 

Steve had you sit on the bed, among the rumpled sheets neither of you bothered to make that morning, him in his haste to leave before Tony arrived and you in your laxness of early morning fatigue, giving way to a frenzied workday that let such mundane things slip from your mind. 

He was tactile, tilting your chin at just the right angle and rearranging your limbs the way you wanted, so you seated on your knees, his shirt falling at just the right angle to leave most of your thighs bare. Steve winked at you when he leaned forward suddenly, quickly popping a few buttons on the shirt so that it rest nearly open against your chest.

It was a cheesecake pose -- something akin to a pin-up girl from his day and age -- but the way he looked at you, the way his eyes skated up and down your form, drinking in every detail and filing it all away to memory while his pencil scratched against the page made you feel more beautiful than you’d ever felt in your life.

You blushed and told him as much, and he grinned.

Steve wouldn’t let you see his sketch when he finished, telling it wasn’t ready and he needed to do more shading and detail before he was ready to share it. You pouted playfully and he made it his mission to kiss it all away, large hands seeking skin to skin contact, slipping up your thighs and beneath the shirt you wore to tickle at your sides.

You were still giggling when he pressed you back into the sheets, his lips chasing away your laughter with soft gentle kisses that made you sigh and relax against him. You never felt the sort of anxiety with Steve that sex used to bring -- worries that your partner might not find you appealing, that he might try to take more than you were willing to give, all of the horrid intrusive thoughts that rose up like bile in your throat with Brandon and the few before him. It was so different with Steve.

Warm. Indulgent. _Safe_.

You wanted him in a way you’d never really felt before. It wasn’t a routine, just a sidenote part and parcel to whatever being with someone should entail; you craved it, the closeness, the intimacy, all of it. You don’t think you could ever tire of it, even if he kept you held close against him for days and days, hearing the way he whispered your name even as you felt him move inside of you.

The thought occurred to you that this was making love, the kind of thing you’d heard about and read about but never really believed. Sex was just sex, you had told yourself time and again; it could be fun and pleasurable but there was nothing more to it, not like they tried to tell you in all those silly romantic films. But this was different -- it had always been different with Steve, from the very first time he laid a gentle press of his lips against your forehead. 

Part of you was afraid that you were reading too much into it, until Steve held you cuddled close in the aftermath, nuzzling beneath your ear.

“I’ve never felt this way,” he whispered, soft and quiet as though it were a secret to be shared just between the two of you. “Not about anyone.”

You smiled, mind and body still awash in the mind-bending pleasure he had given you.

“Can’t believe you never had a sweetheart before, Steve,” you teased, tracing your fingers down his arm even as he held you close.

Steve breathed a deep, content sigh. “I did, once. For a little while,” he admitted quietly.

You hummed in response. “What was she like?” you pressed. You didn’t feel any jealousy, not even a little threatened by the specter of his memories. Were you not so relaxed, you might have questioned that about yourself; usually, you were so unsure.

“She was… pretty amazing, really,” Steve told you. He ran his fingers through your hair and drew his teeth against your shoulder before continuing. “Things were different then, though. We were all so young and didn’t expect to make it to even see thirty years. Everything burned hot and fast… I think some who made it home found it burnt out pretty quick.”

“You loved her?” you pressed, curious now. Tales of the Captain rarely spoke on his love life; it intrigued you to know he had left someone behind.

“I think so, the best way I could back then,” Steve reasoned. “But then I was gone and she had a whole life ahead of her. It was a good life, too. Found someone. Had a family. Couldn’t be happier for her -- certainly can’t regret losing each other the way we did, not when she found happiness like that. And not when I’m laying here with you in my arms.”

“You can love more than one person in a lifetime,” you said quietly. You blushed furiously at your own words -- the assumption that he loved you, the mere thought that he even could love some hopeless mortal like you.

Steve smiled against the tender skin of your throat; you could feel that he had flushed, the heat of his cheeks readily apparent against you.

“You can,” he agreed. “But this feels different, with you. It feels… more.”


End file.
